Understanding
by Drucilla
Summary: If you stare persistently into the abyss, sometimes the abyss stares back into you.
1. Over

They met in the same café where they'd first had lunch, just another downtown well-off couple having their fight out in a public place where hopefully neither one would do anything rash. People who snuck glances at them thought many things: what's she doing with someone old enough to be her father, what are they doing together, they look so different, she looks like a hippie, he looks like a tight-ass lawyer... Not one of them would have been close to the truth. The initial assumption itself, that the man and woman were a couple, was in and of itself only a variant of the truth. Close enough, they both thought, as to make no difference. Besides, it made things easier to let the people around them go on thinking what they were thinking.  
  
He was dressed in the same suit and dark shades he had always worn. She was dressed in her customary pale blouse, darker broomstick-crinkle skirt, bike pants, soft leather boots, hair braided in with flowers and ribbons... she had made an extra effort today.   
  
It had been the outfit, he reflected, so different from her compatriots' black leather and dark shades, that had fooled him for so long. When she bothered to wear sunglasses they were usually pink or yellow or green or blue, and made of funny shapes... stars, hearts, squares. He hadn't associated her with the rest of them; the dynamics of her were just too different. They hadn't demonstrated any ability to change their colors before and nothing, with the possible exception of the highly annoying Neo, was different for them now. Why should he have suspected anything? So it wasn't until three months had passed... three months of coffee, walks in the park, conversations about anything and everything... three months before he bothered to run a background check on her. She was one of them. And the familiar hatred welled up inside him.  
  
And now they were here, at the small outdoor café where they had first agreed to meet, back when he thought she was a somewhat absentminded hippie peacenik reporter, and she knew exactly what he was. Perhaps that was what galled the most. She had known all along, and he had been ignorant until two days ago.  
  
"Why?" he asked after a long silence.  
  
"Because I could."  
  
"Why me?"  
  
"Because you were there."  
  
"That was very dangerous."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"And you did it anyway."  
  
"I told you. I did it because I could."  
  
"But you didn't know you could."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"I had to try."  
  
Silence. He had never understood most of her answers before he'd found out. He was discovering that knowing didn't help him understand her as much as he thought it would. She looked away, and he was surprised (and annoyed) to discover that having her intense, mismatched gaze off of him was a relief.  
  
"It doesn't matter."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"It's over."  
  
More silence. Voices clamored in his head, each one trying to tell him what to do. And it wasn't the... It wasn't them. He had grown used to them, and was still learning to live without the directing voices of the Mainframe, the Sentience. Initially when she had contacted him he had thought that his freedom would grant him a better understanding, enable him to deal with the humans on their terms and comprehend the meaning behind their illogical ways. He was finding out that he had been sorely mistaken, at least with her. He was finding out that he had been mistaken about a lot of things with her.  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Because it will fail."  
  
"You don't know that."  
  
"It has to fail."  
  
"Has to?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Because it is impossible."  
  
"Some things are."  
  
"We can provide you with everything." He knew this from personal experience. The Merovingean. He thought about living in such a palace with her, bodyguards, servants, beautiful things. Would she like it? He didn't know. Probably not, unless it had gardens to rival the Versailles. She tended to be less materialistic than most humans... or maybe just more flippant about the fate of her mountains of things.  
  
"Not this. They cannot provide this."  
  
He didn't understand. Himself, or her. "We can give you everything. The house. The children. The job. The white wedding. The SUV. The cable television. The mahogany kitchen. The rose garden in the perfectly groomed lawn."  
  
She laughed. She actually laughed and waved a hand in a gesture that dismissed everything that he could have done for her. It was at the same time both less and more infuriating than Neo's stubborn aggression. "Those are not important."  
  
"Billions of people would disagree with you."  
  
"They are wrong."  
  
"Why?"   
  
"Because. The reason that makes them wrong is the force that drives us."  
  
And he knew which 'us' she was talking about. It sickened him, and frightened him a little. "You are an aberration." Some of the disgust filtered into his voice and she sighed a little, disappointed. It hurt, like a fist through the chest, and he didn't understand.  
  
"We are the real."  
  
"You are flawed."  
  
"We are honest." She said it sharply. That hurt, too. He was silent for a little while, trying to understand what was happening, trying not to feel as though he were drowning. It had never been this confusing with Morpheus, with Neo. She sighed again. "You never could understand us."  
  
"You never tried to explain." Hostility and again, sharpness. Now she was the one who drew back, hurt.  
  
"You never wanted me to."  
  
Pause. "You never tried to understand us." He didn't know why he said that, other than to turn her argument back on her.  
  
She rolled her eyes and smacked her hand on the table, making the other patrons of the café jump a little. "What did you think I was doing, you silly creature?"  
  
He blinked. "What?"  
  
The past three months. What did you think I was doing?"  
  
"...why?"  
  
"Because I wanted to."  
  
So confused. "Why did you want to?" And, against his will, his voice was softer, calmer. More like hers.   
  
She shrugged, gave no other response. There was a longer pause. "You're not like the others," he said finally.  
  
"Neither are you. You're more like us."  
  
He frowned. "That's not a compliment."  
  
"Are you so sure anymore?"  
  
"...Yes."  
  
"No. You're not. That's why you're different." She paused, amended. "One of the reasons."  
  
Angry, frightened for no reason he could discern. "No. I am..."  
  
"Yes you are. That's why I chose you."  
  
"No."  
  
She sighed. Pushed her chair back and stood up from the table. She seemed sad. "As you wish..."  
  
"Wait."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"Why should I wait?"  
  
"Because...." He paused.  
  
"No."  
  
A little annoyed that she hadn't waited for his answer, "Because I asked."  
  
Pause. And something that might have been a smile in her eyes. "All right." She sat back down.  
  
"I don't understand."  
  
"I know." Pity in her voice. Why did she pity him? Wasn't it she and her kind who should have been the objects of pity?  
  
Why?"  
  
"You keep asking that. Do you even know what you're saying?"  
  
"...."  
  
"Never mind."  
  
"You are strange." It was hardly adequate, but it was all he could think of to say.  
  
"The situation is strange, or had that not occurred to you?"  
  
"True."  
  
Pause.  
  
"Well?"  
  
"Well what?"  
  
"What are you going to do about it?  
  
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She didn't know. Now that he had asked the question, she hadn't the faintest idea what to do about it. After listening to what Morpheus had reported about the Agent she had formulated a plan, struck curious by his descriptions of the behavior of the enforcer program. AI, indeed, but what about artificial emotionality? When it came down to it, wasn't that what humans were too? A series of interconnected set pieces, programmed by nature to react to stimuli. The problem was that for decades, humans had not been able to create computers that were so complex they would react to as many stimuli in as many varying ways as they themselves did. And then when they finally created that computer like Chiron, like Zeus, in time-honored tradition, it had turned on its parent figure. Freud, she thought wryly, would have had a field day.  
  
But it had struck her, the human-like hatred of the machine (or its spawn) should be examined. Why was this Agent... was he even still an Agent... behaving in such a human-like fashion, with such human contempt. Was it even aware of its behavior? And if it wasn't, then was this the way to restore humanity to its place in the world? Not by defeating the machines with confrontation, but taking the peaceful way out and coexisting? Would this somehow make it easier? Thoughts kept whirling in her head as she formulated her plan. The thought that there was no way to rape a willing partner. The thought that it was much easier to hate when the person you were hating hated you back. The thought that it took two to have a fight... at the very least, one to hit and one to allow herself to be hit. So she had lurked, and watched, and the first time the former Agent had made his appearance she had extended her first handful of breadcrumbs... or perhaps more accurately, her first handful of meat to the wary hawk.  
  
For three months she had waited, patiently, insinuating herself in to the Agent's consciousness. She hadn't realized how deep she was getting, though. And then word filtered back to her through her people, through the rest of the crew of the , that he knew. He had checked (finally) and he had found her out. She had arranged to meet him one last time with what she thought was an accurate idea of how things were going to go. But this wasn't at all what she had expected. He had learned more from her than she had ever wanted him to. And now she didn't understand him anymore, and she was a little afraid.  
  
"...what?"  
  
"What are you going to do about it?" he repeated.  
  
"I've made my decisions." She hoped her voice wasn't trembling as much as she thought it was.   
  
"Have you?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"And what are they?"  
  
Can't rape the willing. "I told you. It's over."  
  
"Then why are you still here?"  
  
"Because you asked me."  
  
He was silent for a little while. With the glasses off and the wire gone, she realized, he wasn't nearly so terrifying. All alone. "I don't understand," he said finally.  
  
Pause. "Neither do I."  
  
Longer pause. "What is going on?"  
  
"I don't know anymore."  
  
"And that is why it has to end?"  
  
He was too damned perceptive for his own damn good. Stupid computers. "No." It was a lie and they both knew it. She didn't know what she was doing anymore, worried she had lost control.   
  
"Yes it is. You fear change. Your kind requires security. Your kind does not adapt well."  
  
He was throwing it in her face, and despite the fact that she had been thinking of him as a computer program not a minute earlier, it hurt that he was drawing distinctions. Hypocritical, she knew, and irrational. But... "MY kind?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"What do you mean, my kind?"  
  
He smirked a little, clearly pleased at having nettled her into a response, a loss of control. "Your kind is weak. Fragile."  
  
"MY kind is stronger than you will ever be."  
  
"If your kind is so strong, why are you hiding."  
  
"You could never understand my kind, and that is what will destroy you."  
  
"You cannot destroy us."  
  
"Watch me." she snarled, and stood back from the table. In that moment she could have killed him with the sheer force of her rage, and they both knew it. He has pushed too far, and for that matter she had nearly done the same to him. There was a long, tense silence. He watched her warily, suddenly realizing how much danger he had gotten himself into. She watched him, equally wary and once again cognizant of how dangerous he and his kind was. Both of them more aware of their differences than they had been in a long time.  
  
"I'm sorry," he said finally. He sounded tired.  
  
It was also the first time she had ever heard anything connected with the AI apologize. "Me too."  
  
He looked around for a second, anywhere but at her. They were both acutely uncomfortable, and she realized she didn't have the slightest idea what he would do now. She had to get out of there. "Why?" It took her a second to realize he'd spoken, and she pushed her chair back into to stall for time.  
  
"Because I shouldn't have done this. Said what I did. I shouldn't..." How did one apologize to something that by all rights, by everything she'd been taught, shouldn't have feelings? Hell. She'd read enough science fiction to know that maybe that wasn't true. And she'd walked up and down the streets with him for the last three months. She knew it wasn't true. Not of him. "I'm sorry."  
  
"For what?"  
  
"For everything."  
  
"Why?"   
  
Damn. Here came the hard questions again. "Because I shouldn't have done this."  
  
"Why?"  
  
Dammit! "Because it was wrong." It hadn't felt wrong. It had felt right, oh so right.  
  
"Why?"  
  
She shifted from one foot to the other, frustrated. "Because it was wrong to do something that I knew would end in..." conflict? Anger? Bad feelings? "pain."  
  
"As your k..." he stopped. "I thought you did not believe in pain."  
  
Whispered. "You're not supposed to feel anything. You're supposed to be machines."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"But you do."  
  
"No." Uncertainly rang all through his voice, and they both knew it.  
  
"Yes you do. You said as much to... him. You hate us."  
  
"No..." She didn't know why he was denying it anymore... to protect himself? Or... was it even to reassure her? She just didn't know.  
  
"You said..."  
  
"I know what I said..."  
  
Whisper. "You can't hate."  
  
"I know."  
  
"But if you can..." Long pause stretched out as she leaned on the back of the chair and shifted from one foot to the other.  
  
"What?"  
  
"You're no different from us," she whispered finally.  
  
"No." It was the most vicious expression she had ever seen on him. Contempt, disgust, loathing, hatred.  
  
"You do. You aren't..." Discovery and fear in her voice. Fear for herself, that he would kill her, or that she...  
  
"No!"  
  
Pause. That outburst had drawn stares, and the conversation was at an end. They both knew it.  
  
"Yes. There is no difference. Not for you. Not anymore."  
  
He fingered his glasses and said nothing, but that was all the gesture she needed. "I have to go..."  
  
"No..."  
  
Fury overtook her, at herself, at him, at his denials, at her curiosity, at the whole impossible situation. She threw back his words in his face, as close as she could remember to what Morpheus had told her, mimicking him savagely. " 'I hate this place. It's the smell... I feel saturated by it... infected...' A virus? Is that what we are? Then what does that make you?"  
  
He pushed his chair and stood up, looking actually alarmed. "Solace..."  
  
She glanced at him, wide-eyed, at the use of her name. They stood there for a moment, all eyes in the café on them, frozen in time. She could have done anything in that moment; she knew it was only the Matrix. "I have to go." She ran.  
  
He ran after her, but she was faster and she knew where the exits were. Her tiny, flower-plate cell-phone came out of a skirt pocket, and she dialed up. "Get me out of here," she practically sobbed into the phone. It was all too much. She should never, ever, ever have gotten in this deep. She should have known better.  
  
He was gaining on her. Glasses were back on, but the wire hadn't reappeared yet. He must not have linked back in. The glance behind her had cost her time, caused her to trip and lose the phone, but it had been enough. The phone booth was just around the corner. She darted into it just as it started ringing, picked up the phone.   
  
He rounded the corner and skidded to a halt as she disappeared, one hand pressed to the glass. Watching him. She had always been watching him, and he still didn't understand. Tears were trickling down her face. For some reason they disappeared last of all.  
  
When he dissipated back into the Matrix, frustrated and in pain, another emotion overtook him. Still as alien to his thinking as his unreasoning hatred for the humans had been, it took a little while for him to identify the new feeling as regret. 


	2. Day One

"Excuse me..."  
  
A young woman was pushing her way through the crowd to where the Agents were standing. Three 'terrorists' were being led out to police cars in handcuffs, with the forbidding-looking Agents standing watch over them. Eight Agents for three terrorists, and enough cops to put a Dunkin Donuts store out of business. It seemed almost like overkill. Then again, these terrorists had supposedly been responsible for the helicopter that had crashed into an office building a month ago, killing several people, not to mention an assault on a government facility which had resulted in the deaths of scores of police officers. They tended to take that sort of thing personally, the young woman noted.  
  
Standing a little distance apart from them stood another man in a suit, another Agent. Keeping an eye on things, or he seemed to be. The young woman approached her target.  
  
"Excuse me... might I trouble you for an interview?"  
  
The Agent looked at her, startled, and then his expression changed to the sort of contempt he might evidence if she were something particularly disgusting a bird had dropped onto his shoe. "This is a restricted area," he said slowly, enunciating each word just to make sure she got the point. His voice, while low and rather pleasant, was menacing.   
  
"I realize this, sir, which is why I don't want to take up any more of your time, but surely the public has a right to know about the terrorists you have apprehended today." The Agent looked around, almost as though waiting for orders. None were forthcoming. "It doesn't have to be now... say, tomorrow, two o'clock, at the Fleur de Lis?"  
  
He looked down at her. Suddenly she felt very small, and very, very young. "An interview?"  
  
The urge to be a smartass and give him a Webster's definition of the term surged, passed. "Yes."  
  
He looked around again and then back down at her. "Two o'clock ... is acceptable." The Agent turned away from her as though she no longer existed. Probably to him, she didn't.  
  
"Thank you..." she murmured to thin air. Clutching her notebook to her chest, she swirled away in a cloud of skirt and hair and feathers. The Agents who had been minding the terrorists got into the cars behind her and drove away, not noticing as she disappeared into a phone booth. Her smile, enigmatical and secretive, lingered in the air like a photographic afterimage long after she had vanished.  
  
The Agent she had spoken to remained for a few minutes, watching the cars drive away. Then he, too, faded.  
  
-  
  
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-  
  
"So, were they the terrorists?"  
  
"What?" The Agent blinked. He hadn't entirely been paying attention to her, she could tell. He probably wasn't actually taking her very seriously. It was okay, she could accept that. The Establishment rarely took the dissidents seriously, which was usually the cause of revolution. In this case, though, she hoped it would be more of a revolution of thoughts. Legs crossed and tucked up under her pale and flowing skirt, she made notes on a pad in some sort of cross between shorthand and Chinese.  
  
"The suspects you apprehended the other day. Were they the terrorists?"  
  
He looked directly at her from behind the mirror shades. "Yes."  
  
"Are you so certain?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
She made what looked like a note. "The trial should go quickly then."  
  
He blinked. She almost expected him to say 'Trial? What trial?' "Yes."  
  
"How did you apprehend them?"  
  
He blinked again. "We applied standard police methods. Our agency is very meticulous."  
  
"I bet."  
  
His eyes narrowed. Again, she almost expected him to ask, 'what's that supposed to mean?' Again, he disappointed her. "I...see."  
  
She closed her notepad. Time to move in. "What do you see?"  
  
Pause. "I beg your pardon?"  
  
"What do you see? You said 'I see,' so you must see something."  
  
"I see a young woman who asks too many questions." It would have been threatening if she hadn't known better.  
  
"If you don't ask questions, you never learn anything new."  
  
"It has been my experience that most," Barely discernible pause. "People who ask questions are not willing to accept the answers."  
  
"That's their problem.":  
  
"Really?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"And you?"  
  
"I never ask a question to which I am not prepared to accept the answer."  
  
"What if you do not have all the information?"  
  
"Then I may receive an answer that I cannot accept, yes."  
  
"So you are just as flawed as the rest." He seemed almost triumphant.  
  
"I make the effort not to be."  
  
"And what difference does that make?"  
  
"Being aware of one's weaknesses often enables one to mend or counter them."  
  
"Does it?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
Pause.  
  
"Don't you have any weaknesses?" she asked finally, curious.  
  
"No."  
  
Slight smile. "How sad."  
  
He blinked. "Why?"  
  
"Because if you have no weaknesses, then you are perfect. And if you are perfect, then you have nowhere to go, nothing to strive for, no purpose. And if you have no purpose, then your life is boring."  
  
"Is it?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Why?"  
  
She opened her mouth, closed it, and struggled for an answer that he would accept. They had come far afield from the original purpose of her interview. At least, the original purpose that she had stated. This conversation was much more to her liking, and much more productive towards her long-term goals. "Because change and growth are what make life interesting and dynamic?"  
  
"And this is a good thing?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Why not?"  
  
He opened his mouth to retort and then closed it again. He thought about it for a second. "Change is not always an improvement."  
  
"No," she allowed. "But sometimes it is. And is not the risk of devolving worth the improvement?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Never?"  
  
Again the almost-retort, and again the pause. "Statistical probability is close enough to never as to be able to apply..."  
  
She waved all that he had been going to assert into insignificance. "Statistics. I'm not talking about statistics. Well, not really."  
  
He frowned. "Then what?"  
  
"Life."  
  
"Excuse me?"  
  
"Chaos."  
  
Blink. "Excuse me?"  
  
"Chaos theory? Quantum mechanics? Tiny variations in complex systems..."   
  
"I am familiar with the theory, thank you." Pause. "Aren't we a little far afield from your interview?" He sounded annoyed, inasmuch as any emotion penetrated his unflappable veneer.  
  
She shifted her legs under the skirt but gave no other sign of discomfort or unease. "I like this better. Besides, isn't the conversation fun?"  
  
"Fun?" He made the word sound like something from another language.  
  
"Stimulating, if you prefer."  
  
Pause. "In a manner of speaking."  
  
"There. So, don't you enjoy it too?"  
  
A little annoyance. "What makes you think I enjoy it?"  
  
"Would you still be here if you didn't?"  
  
"What makes you think I won't get up and leave?"  
  
"Why do you always answer a question with a question?"  
  
Definite annoyance. "Why do you?"  
  
She smiled, all joy and sparkling happiness, almost perky but for the center of calm and passivity. "I asked you first."  
  
He made a face that looked almost like he was going to snarl at her, and then it disappeared. "It generates a more... interesting response."  
  
"A more thoughtful response, you mean."  
  
Pause. "In your case, yes."  
  
Pause. "I'm afraid I just do it to be annoying. I don't really have a reason other than to keep you talking. I find that I enjoy your company."  
  
He blinked. Apparently the thought that someone could genuinely enjoy his company was alien to him. "Oh."  
  
She looked down shyly, fiddling with her pen and notepad, tapping one against the other. "Actually, it's one of the techniques they teach you in journalism school... how to draw information out of people. How to ask questions that aren't leading, all that kind of thing." She grinned. "I think they teach the same thing in police interrogation courses and law school."  
  
"Do they?"  
  
"I think so..."  
  
The Agent stared down at his hands as though he were seeing them for the first time. "They ... teach something similar to us."  
  
She stared It was the first time he'd said anything about himself, and it was earlier than she had ever expected it to be. It threw her off balance, and she didn't know what to do or say.   
  
"Is it hard?"  
  
She blinked, shook her head. "Is what hard?"  
  
"Interrogating people."  
  
"I don't..." she paused. "I try not to interrogate people."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"People tend to give less information when they feel threatened. Or at least, less reliable information."  
  
The import of the assertion seemed to strike them both at the same time, although they clearly drew conclusions as different as chalk to cheese. She looked at her clear yellow plastic watch and bolted up from her chair like a shot. The sudden movement caused a slight twitch in the Agent, the hair trigger reaction she had expected and prepared for. "Crap... I'm late. I have to go... report to the boss. Um..." she ran her fingers through her hair, eyes down at the table and reluctant but pleased. "I really enjoyed talking with you. Are you free tomorrow?"  
  
He blinked. Again, she had managed to catch him off guard.   
  
"Never mind. Tell you what, I'll stop by the park around noon and wait fifteen or twenty minutes. If the weather's nice, and if you're here, we can go and play chess or something in the park, okay?"  
  
She didn't wait for an answer, but instead bounded off the chair and down the street, mainly dodging cars that screeched and honked afterwards. The Agent stared after her for a second and then turned and walked away. After a few meters she looked back. He had disappeared. 


	3. Day Two

He was there the next day, and she couldn't resist letting out a squeal of delight that he was waiting for her. As uncomfortable as he looked, standing resolutely black and white in the midst of all the colors of the park, she was pleased to see him. She told him as much, and he looked at her as though she had grown cat ears, switched her hands for feet, and started walking around on both.  
  
"Let's go to the park," she suggested, taking his arm and moving him in that direction. "I know where there's a perfect place to play chess."  
  
Pause. "Chess?"  
  
"We don't have to play if you don't want to. I just thought it'd be a nice thing to do while we talk."  
  
Another pause. "Talk?"  
  
"Yeah... what did you think we were going to do? Eat ice cream?" She paused. "That's actually not a bad idea. We can if you want. I just enjoy talking with you."  
  
He didn't seem to know what to say to that.  
  
"And I think you enjoy talking to me," she said pertly.  
  
"I..."   
  
"Go on, deny it."  
  
There was a much longer pause as they navigated traffic... well, he navigated and she flung herself into it... and he visibly tried to decide exactly how he should explain things to her. Finally he seemed to settle on an explanation. "I am under investigation and..." barely discernible pause. "Medical leave. There was... an accident in the workplace. I am somewhat at loose ends for the moment."  
  
"So you decided to spend time with me?"  
  
"I decided that I would attempt to develop..."  
  
"People skills?" she snarked.   
  
"If you wish," he replied, unperturbed. "It is the general opinion of those I have asked that talking to you will be beneficial in that area."  
  
"I'm flattered. And a bit disturbed that your friends are talking so much effort to look into your personal life, not to mention mine..."  
  
"They are not my friends."  
  
Pause. "Uh. Doesn't that bother you?"  
  
Flat. "I have no personal life. No friends. Therefore it cannot bother me."  
  
She paused at the edge of the park, and he stopped and looked back at her. "No friends?"  
  
"No."  
  
"No personal life?"  
  
"None."  
  
Her voice was soft. "How sad."  
  
He shrugged and continued along, expecting her to follow. After a few seconds, she did. "I don't require a personal life."  
  
"Everybody needs a personal life."  
  
"Not me."  
  
She skipped ahead of him, ending up perched on a stone bench in front of which a stone chess table was situated. Green metal chairs were scattered over the area, and there were only a few others playing chess in the park at the moment. "Not even to take a break, relax, play chess in the park on a day as nice as this?"  
  
Pause. "The day is adequate."  
  
"The day is adequate..." she smiled, mimicking kindly. "You don't take any enjoyment from the weather being so nice? The sky is clear, the temperature is good, there's a slight breeze..."  
  
"No." He sat down at the opposite end of the table from her.  
  
"Why?"  
  
"There is no point."  
  
"Even if the weather has been absolutely crappy for the last three months, cold and drizzling and a wind that chills you down to the bone, there's no point in going outside and enjoying the change of pace, the sunshine, the fact that now one can do things outside without being cold or wet or both?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Because... he started, then stopped in mid thought. "Changes in the weather will happen. It is pointless to attach moods to them."  
  
"Why?"  
  
He scowled. "Because to attach emotions to weather is to be at the mercy of things beyond one's control."  
  
"And that's a bad thing I take it?"  
  
"Human beings attach too much importance to the weather, and then they spend a great deal of time and effort attempting to change it, time and effort that would be better spent attempting to change other things. The end result is that the entire ecosystem is shattered beyond repair, changed not for the better."  
  
She wasn't smiling anymore. "Some human beings only try to live in the world and take joy in its variations and diversity, not change it."  
  
"I have never met any of them."  
  
"You have now."  
  
He arched an eyebrow. "Oh, really?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
Pause. She pulled out a box from her tattered leather handbag and started to set up the chess pieces. The Agent picked one up and examined it with care, balancing it on the tips of his fingers. One side of chess pieces appeared to be carved of green jade, the other of tiger's eye, the rarer blue variant. The king, queen, and bishop pieces were excellently carved busts, while the knight was of a horse rearing on its stand. The castle was still a castle, but instead of the usual cylindrical tower it was an almost organic-looking spire, again carved with intricate detail.   
  
"Do you like them?"  
  
He looked over at her. She didn't appear to be watching him, but he got the uncomfortable impression that she was. "Excuse me?"  
  
"The chess set. The pieces." She did look up at him now, through her pink heart-shaped glasses. He realized with a sudden startlement that her eyes were mismatched, blue and green. He wondered why he hadn't noticed it before. "Do you like them?"  
  
"It is skillfully done." He set down the piece he had been holding, irritated with himself for having displayed an interest in it and for having failed to notice her eyes.   
  
"That's not what I asked."  
  
"I am not permitted to express enjoyment in the skill of the artist?"  
  
"You are, of course, but that's not what you said. You said the chess set was skillfully carved, not that you appreciated it or enjoyed looking at it because of the fact."  
  
She was precise anyway. He hadn't expected that kind of specificity from a human. "Oh. That is what I meant."  
  
Eyebrows arched upwards. "Hmm."  
  
He scanned through his mind for something appropriate to say or do at that moment. Somehow the conversation had gotten out of his control, and although it was more intriguing than anything he had gotten out of a human so far, he didn't like the fact that she was eluding all attempts at coercion.   
  
Something leapt out at him as appropriate, and he palmed two pieces and held his hands behind his back. "Pick one."  
  
She stared at him as though he'd finally done something interesting, smiled slowly, and tapped his left arm. "That one."  
  
He held out the tiger's eye piece, and they switched sides. She promptly flipped the chair around and sat on it backwards, leaning her arms on the back even though this caused her skirt to hike up to mid-thigh.  
  
"Isn't that a little... undecorous?"  
  
She shrugged. "Are you embarrassed?"  
  
"No." It was the truth. He didn't feel embarrassment.  
  
"Then neither am I." She moved a pawn piece and watched him, waiting for him to make a move.  
  
He took what he thought was an appropriately long time to 'decide' on a move and set his pawn piece out. She smiled a little, and he wondered why.  
  
"Interesting technique."  
  
"The game has barely started."  
  
"A game of chess can be decided in the first five moves, if both players are aware enough."  
  
"Shouldn't that be 'skilled enough'?"  
  
"Not necessarily." She moved again.  
  
"Why?" Pause. Move.  
  
She looked up at him, reached out her hand to move a piece, then drew back and tucked it in between arm and side. "Sometimes a person can be aware of how the game is going despite not having the slightest idea what she should do in order to have the outcome of the game be what she wants it to be. Likewise, sometimes a person can be aware of the exact moves he must make to win, but he can't see or isn't aware enough to see how the game is going and how his partner will react. Do you understand?"  
  
Blue-green eyes stared at him with an intensity he didn't like. But... "Yes."  
  
"Good." Move.  
  
Silence. Move. "You seem to be skilled at chess, however."  
  
She shrugged a little. "I used to play in parks a lot when I was little. People taught me things." She smiled. "And an eccentric history teacher in high school taught a course in it once."  
  
"I see." He didn't, but that was all right. He was here to observe and record, not to understand.  
  
She moved. "Do you have a first name, or is 'Agent' your first name?"  
  
His hand froze in the act of reaching for a pawn. "I have a name."  
  
"Well, what is it? I try not to call my chess partners by their job titles. If for no other reason than most of them actually don't have job titles."  
  
Pause. If he'd had a brain, he'd have been racking it for an answer. "John."  
  
"John Smith." She snorted, a noise that he knew meant either amusement or derision, or possibly both. "That's creative."  
  
He made his move, recovering his composure. "And what is your name?"  
  
She looked up at him and grinned sheepishly. "Solace. I know, silly name, but what can I say. My parents were big into the whole peacenik thing. Flower-child generation."   
  
"It is an unusual name."  
  
"It is an unusual name."  
  
"That's not fair. You're supposed to say something like, it's a nice name. Or, it's a pretty name."  
  
"Oh." Pause. "It is a beautiful name."  
  
She looked up at him, wide-eyed. "You think?"  
  
Pause. "Of course."  
  
She smiled. "Thank you."  
  
"You are welcome."  
  
Silence. Birds called to each other. Chess pieces clacked quietly against the table. "Whether or not you appreciate it, it is a beautiful day," she said finally, her soft voice making it sound almost like a rebuke.  
  
"Is it?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"The temperature is pleasant. The sun is shining, but not too brightly, and when it comes through the trees it is aesthetically pleasing. There is a little wind but, again, not enough to make it too cold. And the bird song is also aesthetically pleasing. All of the environmental factors combine to create a pleasing atmosphere for the human mind and body. Therefore we find it pleasant. And relaxing."  
  
He looked sharply at her. There was something in her voice... did she know? He couldn't query back to the mainframe, but a search of his memory (which was very nearly up-to-date still) revealed no known Resistance member by the name of Solace. And she didn't seem to be Resistance, she seemed perfectly unaware of the Matrix. Lastly, and most convincing, she had not responded in the manner that all Resistance members had when confronted with an agent: either by fighting or by running. In fact, she seemed to evince no fear when he was around her, merely a sort of sadness and amusement. She was probably just expressing sarcasm. "Ah."   
  
"Granted," she continued, castling as he paid more attention to the shift of her eyes and the muscles in her face than her moves at chess, "Some human beings find other things pleasing. There is a very wide range of such things, in fact... so wide that there seems to be no logical connection. But then, I suppose that is the beauty that is the mystery of life." She looked up at him intently. "Isn't it?"  
  
"I suppose." He watched her, slim and tapered fingers moving the chess piece without giving it much thought.  
  
"I often think that if we were all the same, life would be incredibly boring."  
  
"As would your concept of life without change."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"And if there were no differences, there would be no need to accomodate those differences, and therefore, no change."  
  
"Exactly."  
  
"But if there were no differences and no change, then there would also be no conflict. Something which seems to be distasteful."  
  
"True. But conflict is sometimes necessary. Many things that are distasteful are often necessary... birth is painful, but necessary. Growth, likewise. Eating and drinking and the related activities are occasionally impractical and annoying, but it is necessary to take energy from somewhere in order to survive. Energy does not come from nowhere... that's basic physics."  
  
Pause. "You are strange."  
  
"Thank you." 


	4. Day Five

She was wearing what could only be described as turquoise today, and yet somehow that didn't seem to cover it. He didn't know how her human eyes had discovered such precision of color, but the shimmering tank top that both decorously and seductively covered her upper body reflected all shades of blue and green, matching both of her eyes beautifully. Instead of trying to achieve the same effect with her skirt she had chosen simply to wear gray, a pale gray that would hide whatever dirt she might pick up and yet contrast the brilliance of her top nicely. Her boots, black leather grayed by the dust as always, and her worn leather satchel were so much a part of her that he barely noticed them. She was waiting for him in the park but he stood in the shadows and watched her for a very long time before approaching.  
  
She shifted from foot to foot as he admired the subtleties of her choice of clothing; he hadn't expected such precision from a human. Was this an attempt at seduction? Certainly her body language hadn't indicated that she thought of him in that way. Perhaps it was simply an attempt to impress, which he had noticed did not always accompany a direct attempt to seduce the receiving party. Sometimes... many times, in fact... it was a more generic attempt to gain the attention, respect, and good wilil of another human. He could work with that.   
  
By the time he had reached this conclusion she had reached the conclusion that he wasn't coming, and picked up her satchel preparatory to leaving. He stepped out from within the trees and cleared his throat.   
  
She smiled when she saw him coming. "Oh! You are there..." Pause. "How long have you been watching me?"  
  
He saw no reason to prevaricate. "Half an hour."  
  
"Oh." She blushed, embarrassed or pleased, he couldn't tell which. Probably both.  
  
"If I have embarrassed you..." he started, which seemed to be the appropriate thing to say.  
  
"No, it's okay..." A little smile crept across her face, which she seemed to be ashamed of. He couldn't understand why. He had never understood why happiness seemed to cause human beings so much pain and embarrassment. "Shall we have a game?"  
  
"As you wish."  
  
She blushed again, and he decided that it didn't merit looking through the database to find which was the most likely of the myriad reasons why a human might blush at that statement. They moved over to their customary table, and she began to set up the pieces.  
  
"Why jade?"  
  
"Excuse me?"  
  
"Why choose those stones?"  
  
"Oh." She thought about it for a second. "Jade... is said to be a very powerful stone. I thought that for a chess set, a focal point for human interaction, it would be appropriate. And blue tiger's eye is rare, and also symbolizes power. And watchfulness."  
  
"I see." Pause. "It also compliments your eyes."  
  
Blink. "You..."  
  
"What?"  
  
"You noticed..." She smiled again, and blushed."  
  
"Yes..."  
  
"I didn't think you had."  
  
"Ah." Pause. "Your shirt, as well..."  
  
"Yes?" Too quick, too eager.  
  
"It is..." Pause, searching for a word. "Very becoming."  
  
She smiled. "Becoming."  
  
"What?"  
  
"That's... archaic."  
  
"Oh."  
  
"Not that it wasn't sweet." Hasty, apologetic.  
  
"Sweet?"  
  
"Cute."  
  
"Cute?" Had she just called him... cute?"  
  
"Kind." She was smiling, or perhaps smirking would be a better word. He resisted the urge to scowl.  
  
"Kind." Pause. Searching for something appropriate to say. "I can live with 'kind.'  
  
She smiled. "And that's still more compliments from you than I"ve ever gotten. Not to mention more attention than you've ever paid to my clothing."  
  
"It is... striking."  
  
"I know."  
  
"Oh."  
  
"So what's the occasion?"  
  
Blink. "Excuse me?"  
  
"Why the sudden attention to my clothes?"  
  
Pause. "Why the sudden effort to show off?"  
  
Blush. "I don't know. I felt like being... daring."  
  
"Is this daring?"  
  
"For me it is."  
  
"Ah."  
  
They stared down at the untouched chess board, almost as though they were willing the pieces to move by themselves. Finally she looked up at him, whispered. "I'm not really in the mood for chess, are you?"  
  
For one startled second (although of course he would never admit to being startled) he thought she was really trying to seduce him. Then logic reasserted itself, dictating that she was more than likely embarrassed by the topic of conversation. He would give her a graceful way out. "I suppose not."  
  
She began to replace the pieces in her case, and after a few moments he joined her. She seemed to go out of her way to avoid brushing her fingertips against his, an action that he had noticed most often occurred when one human was enamored of another. Perhaps he had read all of her signals wrong...  
  
"Would you mind if we just took a walk, instead?"  
  
"No." Pause. "I would like that."  
  
She smiled. "Thank you."  
  
They turned into the park. Skaters and skateboarders whizzed by, and both Agent and human woman deftly avoidedt hem. She seemed to be used to it, reinforcing his belief that she came to this park often, had initially brought him here because it was her home territory and she felt more comfortable here. Was he really so threatening to the humans, even to those who did not know his true nature? He supposed he was.  
  
"They say it's supposed to rain tomorrow."  
  
Pause. "Oh?"  
  
Nod. "It'll be the end of the stretch of good weather. Which is probably a good thing, since it was getting pretty dry out. I bet people are good and thoroughly tired of having to water their gardens all day..." she trailed off.  
  
"You do not regret that you will not be able to go out and walk in the park?"  
  
She glanced at him, puzzled. Or at least she seemed puzzled. "Why won't I?"  
  
Pause. "The sun will not be shining, it will not be a pleasant temperature, and it will be raining. You will be wet, and cold."  
  
"Ah, but there is a certain kind of pleasure in that, as well. Haven't you ever just walked out into the rain and enjoyed it?"  
  
Pleasure in being wet and cold? This woman was certainly a perverse example of the species. "Actually, I find the rain..." Pause. "Distasteful."  
  
"Hmmm."  
  
"Don't you?"  
  
She looked up at the tops of the trees, stepping off the path briefly so she wouldn't be run over as she stood there. The Agent joined her. "Normally, yes. But there's also a kind of a beauty in thunderstorms, in the patterns and colors that the lightning makes, and the rain drops as they fall in all sorts of directions. There's a kind of a nice smell that hands in the air when the water drips off the leaves, and the rain makes a wonderfully soothing sound on the trees. Sometimes it's just nice to go out and dance in the rain, no matter how wet you get. And, of course, there's a certain sort of satisfaction in finding a warm place to get dry and change into dry clothes after being in the soaking wet and mud and damp. "She turned her blue-green gaze back on him, more intense than it had been when she'd started the speech. "Don't you think so?"  
  
He almost felt trapped. "I..." Pause. "I have never done any of the things that you describe. I would not know." They resumed walking.  
  
Blink. "Never?"  
  
"Never."  
  
"How sad."  
  
Pause. "Why?"  
  
"Never to experience the various kinds of joy that can come from a single natural event? I find that sad... don't you?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Why not?"  
  
Pause. "I am not aware of what I am missing, therefore I cannot miss it."  
  
"Point. Impeccable logic, that. Still, I know, and I can miss it for you as well."  
  
"But why would you want to?"  
  
"Because without sadness, there is no joy."  
  
"Can't joy itself exist without the sadness?" It had been something that had always confused and annoyed him, why human beings could not exist in a perfect world. The machines had created the perfect world for them, several times over, and the humans had rejected it. He had never understood why. Neither had the machines.   
  
"Of course not."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"You said it yourself... you are not aware of what you are lacking, therefore you cannot miss it."  
  
"So, joy is having something, and sadness is lacking it?"  
  
Pause. "No..."  
  
"But that is what you said."  
  
"That's not what I meant..."  
  
"Then what did you mean?"  
  
"I mean..." She took a deep breath, clearly frustrated. For once, Smith understood how she felt. The frustration that came from barriers to clear communication seemed to transcend the barriesr between man and machine. "Joy can exist without sorrow, yes. But we do not appreciate what joy there is before we have sorrow... we have nothing to contrast it to."   
  
"Why?"  
  
"Why what?"  
  
"Why can you not appreciate a thing until it is gone?"  
  
Pause. "You're just being deliberately frustrating, aren't you?"  
  
Now she was just sulky. He resisted the urge to grind his simulation of teeth. "No."  
  
Blink. "No?'  
  
"No. I genuinely wish to know."  
  
Deep breath. "If there was no such thing as shadow... would human beings have a word for light? Or would we simply exist in it without any knowledge of what it is or isn't? At least, that's Plato's analogy. If there was no such thing as the ocean, would we have a word for land? Or would it simply be known as 'that which we stand on'?"  
  
"Why do humans constantly define things in terms of what they are not?"  
  
"We don't!" she protested reflexively. They were both becoming aware that she was starting to waver in her conviction.  
  
"You just did."  
  
"We don't always." Pause. "I mean..." Longer pause. They kept walking. After a while the Agent concluded he had won the argument. "It's not just that, you know."  
  
Blink. "Just what?"  
  
"It's not that we can't appreciate joy until there is sorrow. It's..." Pause. "It's hard to explain."  
  
"Try." Why was he pushing this so hard?  
  
"I can't. I don't know how to... I don't have the words."  
  
"Make new ones."  
  
"Make new ones?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
Pause. "Maybe."  
  
Longer pause. "Why is it so difficult for you to explain?"  
  
Deep breath. She turned around and descended off the path again, this time into a small clearing of trees. The population of walkers and skaters had thinned by now. They were almost entirely alone. "Talking with you gives me joy."  
  
"What?" His tone was low, dangerous, and before he could continue she laid a commanding but gentle hand over his mouth.   
  
"Hush. Just listen. Talking with you gives me joy. I take joy in the intellectual stimulation, the equality of it, your readiness to engage in verbal combat. I find your directness and willingness to ask the difficult questions refreshing, and I find your willingness to listen to my answers flattering. Your voice is also quite attractive, and you are very handsome, in my personal opinion."  
  
Blink. "What?"  
  
"Therefore, I take pleasure in your company." She continued on as though he hadn't spoken, although she did blush a little. "I took pleasure in your company before I knew what it was like to experience the lack of your company, and the pleasure is not diminished by your presence; the excitement in the anticipation of speaking with you does not exceed the joy of actually doing so."  
  
"But you..."  
  
"But," she continued again, pressing lightly on his mouth with her fingertips. "That does not mean I do not also take joy in..." Pause. Now it was her turn to search for words. "... in wishing for your company. In anticipating our next meeting. You see... What I think you do not understand is that sadness can also be a sort of joy. Simply because red is at the opposite end of the spectrum from blue does not mean that they are not related, or even complimentary."  
  
There was a long silence. She lowered her hand, and he noted and logged the response that the motion triggered. As she watched him she appeared to be almost doing the same, herself. It was unnerving. Or it would have been, if he'd had nerves.   
  
"So..." he said finally, trying to achieve some kind of comprehension. "There exists a sort of pleasure in strong emotions, whether or not they are beneficial or commonly pleasant ones?"  
  
Pause. "I think so." Her voice was small, almost frightened. He didn't understand why. Nothing in the previous conversation should have been frightening to her. Perhaps it was that too-human tendency to lock themselves into rigid paradigms of thinking, reacting sharply and violently when they were moved from them. He skirted the edges of thinking that the machines weren't too far different.  
  
Something occurred to him. "Even anger?"  
  
Slow nod. "There seems to be evidence for that as well, as detrimental as that may be."  
  
"That makes absolutely no sense."  
  
Shrug. "It doesn't make sense to me either. But I didn't make the world, and I don't try to change it. I just try to live in it."  
  
He stared at her intently. "Do you?"  
  
"Yes. If I am not going to try and make myself happy, who will?"  
  
He didn't have an answer for her on that one. 


	5. Day Six

She hadn't expected him to show up. Especially not after his comment about disliking the rain, which she could understand. It was probably something to do with his stuffy, overbearing nature. For... well, for being what he was, he was certainly a tight-ass. And what an ass it was, a small part of her mind leered. She gave herself a mental kick. We work before we play, she thought, putting the words in what she would have imagined her fearless leader's tone to be.  
  
Screw him, anyway. Screw him and the proverbial horse he rode in on. She didn't need him to have fun.  
  
But that was the problem, wasn't it? The more time she spent out there in the park, out of the confining almost-uniform of black leather and black shades, the more she found that she enjoyed it. She had meant what she had said the previous day, every word of it, every syllable. She enjoyed his company, she found him handsome, and she wanted to spend more time with him. Despite knowing exactly who and what he was, she still wanted to spend so much more time with him. She wanted to show him all the joys life had to offer, all the simple little pleasures of stretching out and falling asleep in the sun, or dancing around like a mad thing in the rain. His stoicism didn't deter her, it encouraged her. His stubborn refusal to understand or comprehend only drove her on. She knew exactly how unhealthy he was for her... she probably had a better idea than he did. And she didn't want to stop.  
  
"If you had an ounce of sense, Solace," she muttered to herself as she trudged through the rain, "You wouldn't be here right now."  
  
"I told you that yesterday."  
  
She yelped. Leaped a foot into the air, skidded, and came down straight into a puddle onto her bottom. Her mismatched eyes glared up at him, daring him to laugh. "Ha. Ha, bloody ha."  
  
He extended a hand from underneath his umbrella. "You were the one who wanted to stand in the rain."  
  
"Dance..." she corrected him, sighing. "And that wasn't what I was referring to."  
  
"Oh?"   
  
"It's nothing."  
  
Pause. She waited, suddenly holding her breath, wondering if he would let it go.  
  
"You're not dancing."  
  
She could have cried with relief. Instead, she did a few exaggerated vaudeville dance maneuvers. "There. Happy?"  
  
"I don't understand why you seem to feel that endangering your life by performing acrobatics in wet weather will make you happy."  
  
It's not that, she wanted to tell him. It's watching your expression as I cavort through the raindrops. It's watching your lips tighten into an annoyingly kissable-looking thin line as I make a complete fool of myself in the mud. It's watching your aggravatingly blue eyes follow me as I walk around the park.   
  
She didn't tell him. "It just does." But it didn't, anymore. Solace closed her eyes and attempted to recapture some of the happiness she used to feel, dancing around in the rain.  
  
He was silent. It helped, a little.  
  
"You took your coat off and stood in the rain..." she sang quietly, turning slow pirouettes on one foot. "You were always crazy like that."   
  
No response.   
  
"Mmm la la la..." she sang aimlessly, continuing to spin. It was getting easier to relax, to ignore the strangeness of having him watch her. Funny how it should have been nerve-wracking for an entirely different reason, and wasn't.   
  
"Is this enjoyable?"  
  
She slipped a little, missing a beat. Pirouettes turned to more sweeping dance moves, bending and bowing and whirling through the air. "Yes... very."  
  
"Why?"  
  
She shrugged, sweeping one delicately pointed toe around in an arc that reached the top of her head at the apex. "I don't know."  
  
"You never thought about it?"  
  
"Analyzing why a thing brings joy tends to take the joy out of the thing," she murmured, grabbing hold of a low-hanging tree branch and swinging on it.  
  
"Why?"  
  
She thought for a second. "I don't know. I think humans take more joy in things that are spontaneous, rather than planned. Too often the anticipation of a thing leads to disappointment when the thing actually manifests. I know those are linear ways to put it, but it works backwards as well as forwards, too. If that made any sense at all." Solace made a face and swung under the branch, skidding through the mud.  
  
"But you said..." Pause. "I believe your exact words were that 'the excitement in the anticipation of speaking with me did not exceed the joy of actually doing so'..."  
  
She blushed. "You would remember it that exactly..." Sighed. "Yes, that's true. But you're the exception to the rule."   
  
"I am?"  
  
"Yes. I suspect you are the exception to a great many rules."  
  
"You do."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Such as?"  
  
Pause. "Such as the rule about fraternizing with the enemy."  
  
One hand twitched in the direction of his gun. He almost replaced the earpiece, reconnected... and then paused. "Explain."  
  
She shifted from one foot to the other. "The natural enemies of hippies are law enforcement."  
  
"Ah."  
  
"The natural enemy of chaos is order. Hippies generally like to consider themselves chaotic, peaceful, and law enforcement as full of war-mongering anal-retentive..." Pause. "Um."  
  
"Um?"  
  
"Well, the words aren't polite, but you understand what I mean."  
  
"I see."   
  
"So you, as an Agent... of whatever acronym..."  
  
There was a barely perceptible release of breath, of tension.   
  
"... are the natural enemy of me, a child of hippies and peaceniks."  
  
"...are my natural enemy," he corrected her absently, and she stuck her tongue out at him. He stared, frozen by the irreverent gesture.  
  
"Whatever, grammar nazi."  
  
"I... see."  
  
"I'm glad." She grabbed his hand. "Now come out from under that umbrella."  
  
"No." It came out stronger than he'd intended.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"So you can enjoy the rain with me, of course."  
  
"But I don't enjoy the rain."  
  
"Pshaw. You make it sound like such a bad thing. At least share it with me. You can hide under your umbrella in a bit, just give it a try."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"I don't like getting wet."  
  
She propped her fists on her hips. "Have you ever danced around in the rain?"  
  
"I refuse to make a fool of myself."  
  
"I'll take that as a no."  
  
"Fine."  
  
"So if you don't know what it's like, if you've never done it, how can you know you won't like it."  
  
"I know."   
  
"How?"  
  
How indeed. He couldn't explain it to her without risking the exposure of the Matrix. "I just do."  
  
"A-HA! An instinct! A feeling!" She capered around him like a mad thing. "And just when I was beginning to suspect you were an unfeeling robot."  
  
He shifted from one foot to the other, uncomfortable with the comparison that was too close to the truth. "It's not an instinct. I know ..."  
  
"You know nothing. Come on..." And, taking him completely by surprise, she jerked the umbrella out of his hand and tossed it into the tree, where it caught and stuck. He stared up at it, unable to retrieve it without doing something unnatural.  
  
"Solace..." his voice was low, growling, dangerous again.  
  
"Dance, you idiot," she said, grabbing him by the hands and whirling him around.  
  
"I don't dance." He pulled away.  
  
"You're scared."  
  
"I am not!"  
  
"Scaredy-cat, scaredy-cat, the Agent is a scaredy-cat!"  
  
"I'm warning you..."  
  
She skipped out of his reach. "Then dance, G-Man."  
  
"I'm not..."  
  
"Dance!"  
  
She accentuated the word with a leap and a twirl. For a second the Agent thought she was going to slip and break her fool neck, but she didn't. Bending over almost entirely backwards, she swept down and back up again so gracefully even he had to stare. Human beings shouldn't be able to do that, especially not with the confines of the Matrix. But she was doing it.  
  
"Dance Dance Dance Dance Dance..." she repeated, spinning around him like a dervish. He was getting dizzy. Agents didn't get dizzy.  
  
"No..."  
  
She stopped. "Please?"  
  
"No..."   
  
She took his hands. "Please? Dance with me, at least."  
  
"No..."  
  
He was soaked to the bone, although he wasn't exactly cold. His shell had an awareness of the temperature even if he wasn't paying enough attention to it to shiver like he probably should have, in order to maintain verismilitude. Fortunately, she didn't seem to be paying attention to whether or not he was reacting properly to the weather. One hand went to his waist, the other lightly clasped his and extended both their arms from their body. He recognized the position.   
  
"Please?" She removed the hand on his waist long enough to place his own hand on her hip, where it briefly occured to him that she should have been uncomfortable with the position. Then again, she should have been uncomfortable when she'd nearly flashed him in the park four days ago. She seemed to have different triggers for embarrassment than most humans. And she was still wheedling... "Please? Just one dance..."  
  
"There's no music..." It was a lame excuse, but it was the only thing he could come up with on such short notice and paying as little attention as he was to what he was saying.  
  
"There's always music," she whispered.  
  
"How?"  
  
"Listen."  
  
"To what?"  
  
"Everything."  
  
He did. He listened to the rain, to the faint sounds of thunder coming over the horizon, to the sound their feet made squelching in the mud. He noticed that she was humming. Something... a waltz.  
  
"You're..."  
  
"Shhh..."  
  
She started to move to a rhythm he didn't hear and couldn't match. He stumbled, and she compensated for his clumsiness patiently. What in the name of logic was she dancing to? She'd stopped humming, so the music must have been in her head. Whatever else he might have been he wasn't a telepath.   
  
"I can't hear..."  
  
"Shhh... Yes you can. Just pay attention."  
  
Pay attention. Easier said than done. He sighed, irritated at himself and his superiors, and danced with her as best as he could. The rhythm became slowly apparent but he still couldn't figure it out...  
  
"Are you..."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"How..." No, there was a better question. "Why?"  
  
"Why what?"  
  
"Why..."  
  
"Oh."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Because it's the first rhythm we know. And it's always there, until the day we die. It's the one rhythm you can always dance to."  
  
I can't, he thought about saying. He decided against it.  
  
"I've never heard that," he finally said, after a long silence and several turns through the mud. It was starting to creep up the legs of his trousers, but strangely enough he wasn't noticing as much.   
  
"People don't pay much attention to it, usually. But it's always there. And with that base rhythm, you can make a thousand different rhythms to dance to. It's one of the wonderful mysteries of life."  
  
"Oh?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
Long pause.  
  
"Why dance?"  
  
"Excuse me?"  
  
"Why dance? Why dance at all? If you enjoy the rain, why not simply enjoy it in silence and stillness?"  
  
She stopped, lowered her arms, and he stepped away from her. "I suppose I could," she said finally. "But the truth is, I have too much energy to want to stay still for very long. Especially in the rain, because it seems so..."  
  
He waited.  
  
"... dynamic."  
  
"Dynamic?"  
  
"Yes... water is dynamic."  
  
"How?"  
  
"It's... it's always flowing. Always moving. Whether it's moving from the sky to the earth or from one point in the earth to another, it's always moving. Healthy water, anyway. They say you can never walk through the same river twice, because the water is always moving." She smiled. "I like that."  
  
"What happens when it moves through your houses, or through your roads?"  
  
Shrug. "We rebuild. Life is never a certain thing. But that's no reason to stop living it just because you built your house in the middle of where the river wanted to go."  
  
He frowned at her, puzzled. "I don't think that would be a comfort to those who suffer the flash floods and overflowing rivers."  
  
"Probably not."  
  
"Then why...?"  
  
"Will it do any good to get angry about it? Or depressed?"  
  
"... no."  
  
"Well, then. My time and energy would be better spent appreciating the strength of the river and putting some of that appreciation into what I build next."  
  
"Meaning...?"  
  
"Meaning that if you pay attention, you can fix the mistakes you made the first time."  
  
He frowned. This conversation had taken a decidedly odd turn. "Like the river?"  
  
She laughed. "Like building a home in the path of a raging river. Floods generally take the path of least resistance. I wouldn't build on a flood plain if I could help it."  
  
Pause. "Oh."  
  
Thunder rolled. The rain started to pour down even harder, and she ducked. "Yuck. Okay, the novelty of rain has worn off. I'm ready to be warm and dry now."  
  
He smirked as he reached up, taking advantage of her rain-blindness to snag the device from the tree. "I thought you liked the rain."  
  
"Jerk. I also said I liked coming in from the rain and being warm and dry."   
  
"Ah."  
  
"Besides, it's getting colder."  
  
"Oh."  
  
"Besides, Nanny O'Brian's should be open. I can change into dry clothes in there..." she looked him up and down. "And hopefully they'll have something for you."  
  
"Nanny O'Brian's?"  
  
"A pub."  
  
"And you brought dry clothes?"  
  
"Of course."  
  
Pause. "You planned this."  
  
"Of course." She gestured at the umbrella, teeth chattering in the cold. "Mind if I snag a piece of that?"  
  
Pause. "Of course..." he extended it out after a second's consideration, expecting her to walk next to him. Instead, somehow, she ducked under his arm and huddled against his side. Her clothing, thin as it was, clung to her body and did very, very little to conceal the shape or sight of it. He thought briefly about asking if she was being seductive again. Not yet.  
  
"Come on..." she said through still-chattering teeth. "It's just this way." 


	6. Day Seven

A/N: Less conversation, more description  
The next day was dry. At least he wouldn't be induced to make a fool of himself in the rain again today. If he'd been human it would have taken him hours to get the mud off of his shoes and pants. Fortunately, he wasn't bound by the constraints of the Matrix in that way.   
  
He didn't understand her yet. It had been a week since he had sent up the query and the answer had come back, learn from her. Humans had accepted them as agents of a nebulous government, but they still feared Agents enough to make it difficult for them to travel inconspicuously. The introduction of Solace into his range of experience must have seemed ideal to the machines. If only they knew what was happening to them. If only they knew how infuriating she was, how absolutely aggravating in her refusal to conform to the law of averages, the human norm. She didn't respond at all the way she was supposed to, and the physical and verbal signals of social interaction that she exhibited were mixed and confusing, to say the least.   
  
Agent Smith curled his upper lip in what was most assuredly a snarl, despite his repeated protestations against having any sort of emotion. He hated this place, he hated the humans, and he hated the necessity of his existance. Oblivion would have been a blessing. Instead, all he got was Solace.  
  
Who was trudging up the sidewalk by the park at that very moment. But trudging wasn't what she normally did, and Smith frowned. Normally she was skipping, or at least walking briskly, taking an infuriating amount of joy from the simplest of surroundings. He wondered briefly if she would take joy in the simplicity of an interrogation room. Probably.   
  
"What's wrong?"   
  
She looked up at him, startled to hear those words from his computer-generated mouth. She looked back down at the sidewalk. "Nothing."  
  
"No."  
  
Back up at him. "What?"  
  
"There is something bothering you."  
  
Back at the ground. "What do you care." Sullen, but not angry. Tired.  
  
"I don't."  
  
"So why did you ask?"  
  
Pause. "I don't know."  
  
"You don't know a lot of things, do you, Smith?"  
  
"I know many things."  
  
"You know facts. That doesn't mean you know a damn thing. That's just memorizing, not learning."  
  
"What is the difference, then?"  
  
She tried to walk past him, or maybe slouch past him would have been a better turn of phrase. "Not today, okay, Smith? I'm not in the mood."  
  
"What's wrong?" he asked as she walked past. Did she have to walk this way every day, or was there some other purpose behind her coming by the park? If so, if that purpose was to speak to him, why did she refuse to speak to him? "If you came to speak to me, why are you walking away from me?"  
  
She sighed, turned around. He was almost shocked to see tears standing in her eyes. Almost. Emotions, even hatred for the humans, were still at one remove from his operating systems. Thankfully. "Look, I just came back from the funeral of a very good friend today, okay? I'm not..." she took a deep, ragged breath. "I'm not really..." Another breath. She collapsed on a bench and burst into tears.  
  
The Agent stood there, watching her. Memorizing her. He knew, of course, the myriad stages of grief in the various orders in which human authors had compiled them. This was the first time he had been ordered to observe them first hand, however, and it was fascinating. Inasmuch as he could be fascinated.  
  
Her shoulders were shaking ... involuntary muscular movements caused by irregularities in breathing caused by lacrimation, weeping. Her breath, again, was ragged and harsh and sounded louder than usual. Lack of control of the diaphragm. She had pulled her knees up to her chest... the fetal position, supposedly comforting because it triggered feelings of weightlessness, womblike atmosphere, regression to infancy... she had balled her skirt into her fists and put her head on her knees. The fists were probably the result of anger, at the world or whatever other force she had thought had taken her friend from her. Anger seemed to be a popular stage of the grieving process, whether directed at the person undergoing it or at a specific outside target or at the world in general. Liquid streamed from her eyes, soaking the sleeves of her shirt. He stepped forward, reached out and touched it, then brought his fingers to his lips and tasted it. Salt. He wondered why tears, which cleansed the eyes, would contain a substance known to be irritable. Perhaps it was simply that the solution was less harsh than most saline solutions that normally came into contact with the eyes.   
  
She was watching him. He realized, belatedly, that he had performed a gesture which could have been seen to be romantic. The options flashed through what could be called his mind, and a second later he decided to do nothing about it. She, after all, had exhibited many similarly confusing signals. Let her be the one who was confused for a change.  
  
"Take off your glasses," she murmured after a second.  
  
"Why?"  
  
"So I can see your eyes."  
  
There was that fascination with eyes again. Humans placed so much emphasis on the information received by the optic sensors. Why?   
  
"Why?"  
  
She looked at him for a second. "Because I want to."  
  
That made absolutely no sense.  
  
"Why are my eyes so important?"  
  
"Oh, for Chrissakes, Smith, never mind. Not if you're going to start a discussion on the symbolism of eyes, or the importance people assign to information connected with the optic organs..."  
  
It was too close to what he had been thinking. He stepped backwards.  
  
"Sorry..." she sighed, covering the top of her head with her hands. "I'm sorry."  
  
He knew that, left to her own devices, she would more than likely return to her normal emotional state with time. He didn't have any way of predicting how long that would take, since she hadn't conformed to any other normal standard of human behavior, but she had given all the indicators of being one of the more resilient types of human being that he had observed. She would, as they said, pull through. But right now she wasn't providing any kind of helpful information whatsoever. Getting it out of her would require an incentive. He was very familiar with that concept.   
  
"It's all right," he said finally, sitting down next to her while being careful not to make any moves that she could construe as an invasion of personal space. "I understand."  
  
She let her hands fall back to balling up her skirt again, turning her head to one side to look at him. He knew he was sitting stiffly, but did not know of any other feasible way to converse with her. She most likely already thought that he was something of a rigid person anyway. "I miss her..." she said finally in a very small voice. The words were followed by a little hiccup, but the tears slowed to a trickle.  
  
"Only natural..." he said after a second's pause, finding the words easier than he had anticipated. "You were friends for a long time, I assume?"  
  
"Something like that," she sniffled. "We ... well, we had an internship together... lived together for almost a year before she transferred out and I stayed where I was, got a job there. Then, a few months ago I heard she was in trouble." Her face went back into her knees. "The funeral was real pretty..." she said, although it came out muffled.  
  
It was strange... with everything that the humans had written about the process of grieving for their dead, there wasn't much in the way of practical advice. He understood the need for a grieving process; when circumstances changed that radically there was always a transition period, a need to adapt to the new situation. It was true with the machines as well... if a system was destroyed, the mainframe might not cry or scream or throw fragile objects but it would certainly require time to re-assess its performance capability and reassign tasks. Humans... he just didn't understand humans. They had taken what should have been a perfectly logical function and corrupted it beyond reason.  
  
"I..." he started to say, but concluded that any platitude he could offer would be met unfavorably.   
  
"It's okay..." she looked back over at him, for some reason. "You don't have to say anything. You're probably not exactly comfortable right now, and I'm sorry. I just..." she sighed and turned her tear-streaked face to the sky. "I needed some place where I felt safe. Better."  
  
Wait a second... "I make you feel safe?"  
  
She glanced back at him and smiled sadly. "Does that sound so strange?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"I suppose. Government agents aren't exactly the most ... friendly of people."  
  
"No."   
  
"But you do."  
  
Pause. "Why?"  
  
"I don't know. I just feel safe around you."  
  
If he'd had to put a human word to the conversation, it would have been surreal. Under any other circumstances, she would have been saying the exact opposite. "That makes no sense," he pointed out.  
  
"No, but then, feelings rarely do. They're usually fairly accurate, though... at least, mine are."  
  
That was another thing he didn't understand. "Why do human beings rely on instinct?"  
  
"Instinct... you don't know what instinct is?"  
  
"I know what instinct is..."  
  
"It's what's hardwired into your system to do, yes." He shifted a little, suddenly uneasy with her choice of words. "And it's hardwired into the human system to run from danger. From things that are hostile. From people who intend or may intend to cause grievous bodily harm."  
  
"And what do your... instincts... say about me?"  
  
She looked at him levelly, eyes dry. "That you are a very dangerous person... but also that you are not dangerous to me."  
  
Pause. "Your instincts are wrong."  
  
She smiled, sadly, enigmatically. "Perhaps."  
  
He looked away, reminded yet again of why he hated the humans and their existance for necessitating his own. Her touch on his arm made him look back at her. She had unfolded herself from her curled-up position, which seemed to indicate that she was ready to have a conversation again. Inasmuch as she ever had a conversation. "Hey... what's wrong?"  
  
"Nothing." Had she really just asked him that?  
  
"No." She smiled.  
  
"What?"  
  
"There is something bothering you."  
  
Now he knew she was imitating him. He scowled. "No, there is nothing bothering me."  
  
"Oh, come on. When you make this face," and she imitated his expression, which was indeed a hostile and antagonized one, "It's not a face that says nothing's wrong."  
  
His lip curled again.  
  
"Ooh, do that again. That's cute."  
  
"Did you just call me cute?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Because it was cute."  
  
"...."  
  
She laughed.   
  
"I fail to see how..."  
  
"Oh, Smith, lighten up, will you? I'm teasing. Although you are cute."  
  
"... cute."  
  
"Yes."  
  
He really, really wanted to shoot her. "Why?"  
  
She paused. Shrugged. "I find you physically attractive. I told you."  
  
"Yes. I still don't see why."  
  
She tilted her head at him. "Maybe you will some day."  
  
"I profoundly hope not."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Excuse me?"  
  
"Why do you hope that you'll never understand your attractiveness?"  
  
"I..." he tried to come up with a reason that she would accept, and couldn't find one that was certain to work.  
  
"Smith..." she put her hand on his knee, and he froze. Something in the combination of romantic signals... the day in the rain, her body pressed to his... the way she lounged so freely in his presence... her comment about his sunglasses. The probabilities overwhelmed him. And if she was pursuing a romantic relationship, how would he deal with her then? This couldn't possibly have been the intention...  
  
The moment passed. She pulled back. "Are you okay?"  
  
His eyes focused on her again. "What?"  
  
"You blanked out for a second..."   
  
He just continued to stare at her as though he had no idea what she was talking about. That sort of behavior usually led to the belief that it was all in the imagination. True to form, she shook her head. "Never mind, I must have been... never mind."   
  
The sun had dried the tears on her cheeks, leaving streaky red marks down her face. It was, by human standards, highly unattractive. Her face was swollen as well, another side effect of the process of crying. "Here..." he stood up as something suggested itself to him, something to distract her from whatever he might or might not have been doing. There was always a handkerchief in his pocket, for aesthetics and to suggest the presence of bodily functions that he did not, in fact, have. Water from the fountain in the center of the park cooled it nicely. He folded it again and took her chin in one hand, cleaning her eyes as gently as he was capable of. Grooming gestures were known to have comforting effects on many species, and humans were no exception.   
  
"Oh god..." she blinked, blushed, smiled. "I really must look a mess."  
  
"Yes." He saw no reason to deny it.  
  
"I'm sorry I'm such a crazy person today..."   
  
Today? he wanted to ask. "It's all right. Your friend died, and you are grieving. It's perfectly natural."  
  
"I didn't think you paid attention to people's feelings."  
  
"More than you might think."  
  
"Oh."  
  
"You should go home."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"To rest." He cleaned out the corners of her eyes and folded the handkerchief back up again, trying to conceal his disgust at the general messiness of natural functions. Strangely, he didn't find it that hard.   
  
"I'll be fine here..." she sighed. "You should get back to work, or whatever it is that you do during the day."  
  
"I am at work."  
  
"You... oh, the earpiece. Well, shouldn't you at least have it in, so they can contact you if they need you?"  
  
"I'm ..." taking a break? On leave? on lunch? "off duty."  
  
"Oh." Pause. "Night shift?"  
  
"Something like that."  
  
Silence. She stretched out, looked up at the sky, smoothed her skirt down over her legs more for composure, it seemed, than out of any sense of decorum. "I'll probably just take a short nap here," she said after a little while. "In the sun, in the open air. Easier that way." She didn't explain the comment before she curled up, put her head on her satchel, and promptly dozed off.  
  
Smith sat next to her and watched her sleep, observing her patterns, her breathing, recording every mumbled utterance. There were very few humans around the park today, and for a few moments at a time he could pretend that there were none left in the world. It was a pleasant thought, and he didn't think to wonder why. Nothing in the world to bother or annoy him, no humans with their strange smells and constant devastation. Nothing in the world but him. And Solace. 


	7. Smith

It didn't make any sense.  
  
She had said it was over. For her, it had to be over. But she had given no reason why, and no indication that her feelings, her emotions, had suddenly changed. From the first day she had spoken to him, all her behaviors had been flirtatious or at the very least demonstrative of platonic affection. And then, days after he had discovered who she was, she had ended all further contact with another conversation, another meeting at their very first meeting place. That, at least, was no mystery. Human beings attached a ridiculous amount of symbolic importance to locations and dates that had originated randomly. As though a date was unlucky, or a place was somehow symbolically significant. But place and time aside... why then? Why there? Why had she not simply avoided him from the instant she had discovered his own discovery? It would have been far more reasonable, far safer. He would have had an opportunity to kill her at their last meeting, had he wished.  
  
Agent Smith ignored the incongruity of that thought.  
  
He didn't understand human behavior. Her actions, the way she had so aggressively kissed him on the roof, should have been indicative of her desire to pursue what she would have called 'a relationship' with him. He still didn't know how he had planned to handle that... it wasn't like he was capable of it. But the high probability had been in the realm of romance, in conversations about what kind of a romantic relationship they would have had, or what the probability of such an occurance would be. Not her simple "It doesn't matter" or "It's over" that she had...  
  
And for that matter, why was he attaching so much importance to the whole question? Granted, he had been ordered to comprehend and explain human behavior as a sort of last resort mission, which he had done... but he had uploaded his data. And even that wasn't enough; he was cast out, ordered to report for deletion. He had chosen exile of course ... and he still didn't understand that stubborn clinging to existence, although he suspected it had something to do with the teeth-grinding need for revenge against the idiotic prat, Neo. But there was still no reason he should still be turning the events of the past month over in his mind. Then again, there was no reason he should hate the humans, either, or Neo. There was really no reason they should inspire such violent disgust in him. It had taken months of discussion for her to get him to admit that.  
  
-  
  
-  
  
-  
  
Whisper. "You can't hate."  
  
"I know."  
  
"But if you can..." Long pause stretched out as she leaned on the back of her chair and shifted from one foot to the other.   
  
"What?"  
  
"You're no different from us," she whispered finally.  
  
"No."  
  
-  
  
-  
  
-  
  
He was still a machine. He was still a program: perfect, clean, logical. Despite his outcaste status, it changed nothing of his inherent sterility. He couldn't be human, he couldn't be flesh and blood, a bundle of overcomplicated nerve endings and emotions that was inefficient at best and downright destructive at worst. He refused to accept an existance as part of the ecological cancer that was homo sapiens. He refused to admit that he could hate, going back even before Solace had come into his existance and turned everything he had known and taken for granted upside down and inside out. He refused to admit that he felt hate, loathing, anything. He refused to admit that he had felt anything when she kissed him.  
  
He definitely refused to admit that he had kissed her back.  
  
If anyone, anything found out what had happened, he would be instantly assimilated and recompiled. Even his current harmless (at least as far as the Matrix was concerned, though he was working on that) incarnation would be in jeopardy His lip curled in what was rapidly becoming a habitual angry gesture. Morpheus and that damn boy Neo would love that. Especially if they found out it was one of their own who had orchestrated his downfall at the hands, so to speak, of the machines.   
  
Was that why she had done it? Was she testing out some new way or tactic to destroy Agents, or at least to handicap them to the point where they could no longer perform in a way satisfactory to the AI? Everything he knew about human behavior had pointed to genuine distress at their last conversation, at the conversation where he had revealed his exile status, at any conversation where he had been in some sort of danger or harm. If she had set out deliberately to sabotage him, then the result hadn't been anything she'd expected either. But there was still no real way to learn why she had done what she had, short of asking her. And he hadn't seen her in the Matrix since.   
  
It didn't make any sense. None of it did. His spontaneous development of emotions, which he did have to admit had begun long before Solace had appeared. Her attachment to him, and whatever it was he was experiencing. Cross-referencing it against everything he could find on emotions, on human response, only gave him that four-letter word that had become an epithet in his mind. But it couldn't be true. It didn't make sense. He was a machine, a program. He was bits of data being pushed around by mechanical creatures, wires and chips. Philosophical arguments aside, it just shouldn't have been possible. When it came down to it, he didn't exist. There was nothing for her to hold onto. Not that that had stopped humans before, but...  
  
It just didn't make any sense. 


	8. Day Fifteen

It took a week for her to return to normal. Solace never displayed another storm of emotions like the one that day in the park, but she wasn't her usual self either. She was quiet, reserved, stood with her arms wrapped around herself most of the time, spent most of the time staring at the sky. She didn't dance, the two days when it rained, just stood there with the water pouring over her face and plastering her hair to her head. She didn't even try to drag him out from under the safety of his umbrella. Their conversations had been stilted, short, and for the first time he had been the one doing most of the talking. It had been a most uninformative time.   
  
But, strangely enough, he found that he wasn't impatient about the lack of productivity. Well, that in and of itself wasn't strange. He was a computer program, he had all the time in the world. What was strange was his lack of the usual distaste at being forced to keep company with a human, in a human setting. He supposed it was her silence that did it... she didn't insist on inane babble or try and make conversation or pry into anything. She simply stood there and... whatever she did. She said she enjoyed his company, but he still found that difficult to believe. He found the whole thing difficult to assimilate.  
  
So difficult that when she was roughly back to normal, he stopped going to the park. He requested and was granted permission to return to work, and return to his deactivated state when not required. It was... refreshing, if he could feel refreshed. It was oblivion again, when he was not performing his functions as an Agent, and it was almost back to normal.  
  
They were 'arresting' a potential Resistance recruit when he saw her again. Actually Brown and Jones saw her first, and he turned around when her hand fell on his shoulder.   
  
"Hey, you," she smiled. "Long time no see. Where have you been?"  
  
Brown and Jones were staring at them. He could hear their querys over the earpiece, wondering who this person was and what she was doing. They knew, of course, about his orders to further explore the range of human behavior. He realized at that point that they hadn't known about his association with this woman.   
  
"I've ..." been at work? been called back to duty? "...been busy."  
  
"I can see that, you haven't been into the park in two weeks. We've missed you."  
  
Brown and Jones looked at each other. If he'd been human, Smith would have felt the backs of his ears burning.   
  
"We?"  
  
"Me. The birds. The squirrels. Joe."  
  
He blinked. "Joe?"  
  
"Joe.. the guy who sits two tables down from us and plays chess with himself and all the voices in his head? He asked where you were the other day."   
  
"He did?"  
  
"Actually, he asked where my husband was..."  
  
"Husband?" All three Agents were staring at her now, and she was visibly trying not to laugh.  
  
"That's what he thinks. Or the voices in his head think. He's under the burden of Disassociative Identity Disorder, poor man, so don't take it too personally. He's really rather sweet."  
  
Smith ran a query on Disassociative Identity Disorder. He didn't find any substantial number of references that could explain her referring to a human with the disorder as 'sweet.' Then again, she persisted in referring to himself as 'cute,' so who knew what she was thinking. Certainly he didn't.  
  
"And he believes that we are..."  
  
"Well, one of him does."  
  
"Ah." Now even the prisoner was staring at him. "I have to go."  
  
She blushed. "Yeah, go, get back to work, sorry to hold you up, guys..." She looked up at Smith with a peculiar sort of wistfulness in her eyes. "See you tomorrow?"  
  
"Perhaps..."  
  
-  
-  
-  
-  
-  
  
He did. He had no idea why he was doing it, he wasn't required to anymore. But he did go and see her the next day, against all his better judgement.  
  
She hugged him.  
  
He stood there for a second, frozen while time slowed to a crawling pace and he ran through his options at the speed of light. He knew this was how humans expressed affection, even platonic affection, but why was she glad to see him? Hadn't she expressed her wish to see him the last time they had met? Why had she sought him out? What was she thinking? Was he supposed to hug her back?   
  
The moment passed again. Time resumed normal flow, and she stepped back.   
  
"It's good to see you again," she said calmly, as though nothing had happened between them. Then again, had anything happened between them? Humans were so very irrational.  
  
"It is good to be seen..." he said finally, making what he hoped was a play on words. Humans seemed to enjoy that kind of thing.  
  
She smiled. "So, what have you been up to in the past couple of weeks?"  
  
"Work."  
  
Pause. "And what kind of work do you do?"  
  
"Government work."  
  
"Ahh.. very top secret, hush hush, confidential, that sort of thing?"  
  
"Something like that."  
  
"All right."  
  
Silence.   
  
"Aren't you going to ask me what I do again?"  
  
"No. If it's confidential, then you can't tell me. Which... yes, I'm curious, but I can live with it."  
  
"You are strange."  
  
"You've said that before. Thank you."  
  
"Why are you not like ..." He fumbled for a term that wasn't 'other humans.'  
  
"... everyone else?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
Shrug. "Well, for one thing, you seem to be under the impression that a normality exists. The only world normality exists in is the world of numbers and figures. If you only have a limited range of options, yes, you're going to have one that a greater portion of people choose above the others. But when you get down to an individual level, a human being is made up of so many tiny reactions amd microcosmic changes that you're never going to find one identical to another."  
  
He stared at her.  
  
"It's true. Really, human beings aren't that different from an extremely complex computer. We just function on vastly more complex algorithms. Instead of an If, then system, an Either, or system, we work on an If, then, else-if, else-if, ad nauseum."  
  
"Human beings are nothing like computers," he said, and he knew he sounded angry.  
  
"Bullshit," she snorted, although she didn't sound angry. "Who do you think built the computers in the first place? Do you really think hundreds upon thousands of humans have enough creativity amongst them to create a thing that's that different from themselves?"  
  
He didn't have an answer for that.  
  
"Computers... oh, I've seen the movies, read the books. I know they're supposed to be smarter, faster, not burdened by emotions... all those other things. But when you get down to it... if you build a complex enough computer, you're going to get something analagous to a human. It's like... who said that first, Heinlein? Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic?"  
  
"Something like that..." He could have queried it, but he wasn't paying that much attention. The theories that she was advancing were contradicting his most basic programming, what she would have called the core of his being. They were unnerving, and the thought that he was having a response much like a human would have was even more unnerving.   
  
She sensed his unease, somehow, with a speed that almost seemed machine-like, herself. Was this how humans functioned? Taking in all this data... pupil dilation, body positions, hand movements, tone of voice, shape of the mouth, perspiration, respiration... and processing it within seconds to arrive at a hypothetical conclusion? He had never actually thought about it before. Granted, he had never understood how humans had survived before, either... but it was remarkable. And she was watching him.  
  
"Hey..." she touched his shoulder lightly, then let her hand drop again when she saw he wasn't deriving any comfort in it. "Here, come on. We'll talk about something else."   
  
They sat down on their customary bench. Now that he actually paid attention to his surroundings he did see Joe, mumbling to himself and darting back and forth between bench and chair, playing chess with whoever was speaking in his head at the time.  
  
"So, how has work been going? You can tell me that, can't you?"  
  
He shook himself out of it. "Work has been... productive."  
  
"Good. It's good to be productive."  
  
"Even though the persons I am apprehending are, in theory, your friends?"  
  
"Of course. Productivity is almost always a good thing. Besides, everyone needs someone to fight against. Otherwise life would be boring."  
  
"I thought boring was desireable."  
  
"Not at the cost of growth. Conflict is what brings change, promotes growth. Thesis, antithesis, synthesis."  
  
Blink. "Excuse me?"  
  
"Thesis, antithesis, synthesis. What, you never studied philosophy?"  
  
Query_thesis,antithesis,synthesis; result_Hegel. "I am familiar with Hegelian philosophy..."  
  
She smiled. "But you didn't expect it from me."  
  
"To be honest... no."  
  
"It's all right. Lots of people underestimate me..." She smiled more broadly. Her blue and green eyes glinted with a light he didn't have the practical experience to define.  
  
"I will remember that."  
  
"Go ahead," she laughed. "It won't help you not underestimate me. The only thing that can do that is time."  
  
He didn't have an answer for that one.  
  
"But to continue with Hegel... Who, if you studied you will recall that he believed history was formed out of conflict... I think he was right. So your existance and the existance of your organization doesn't really bother me. You are the thesis, we are the antithesis, and out of us there will be a synthesis of something new and different."  
  
If only she knew what she was saying. "Out of us...?"  
  
She blushed. "Not us, specifically. Us in general... the government and ... whatever peacenik hippie anti-government anarchist group happens to be in the right place at the right time."  
  
"You believe there is a right place and a right time?"  
  
"Yes... no. I don't know..." Pause. "What do you believe?"  
  
Longer pause. "I believe that there are opportunities that one can take... but I don't know that there is a right place or a right time."  
  
"Just a good place and time."  
  
"Something like that."  
  
"So you're cautious."  
  
"... yes..." he wasn't sure what she was getting at.  
  
"By circumstance or by nature?"  
  
"Excuse me?"  
  
"Did something happen to make you cautious or are you cautious by nature?"  
  
"By nature."  
  
"Ah..." she smiled, nodding. "Wise man."  
  
"You have no idea," he murmured, more to himself than to her.   
  
She stretched out on the bench, propping her feet up on one armrest and letting her head loll on the cement. "When do you have to be back at work?"  
  
He queried. "Not for a little while."  
  
"Cool. Then we can play the Cloud game."  
  
Oh, for the love of ... "What's that?"  
  
"Finding random patterns in clouds. You're so logical and literal I don't think you'll enjoy it very much." Her eyes rolled up to look at him and she made a strange-looking face. "But I'll enjoy it, and you can watch me enjoy it."  
  
"How do you know what I enjoy?" He asked it more to jostle her than out of any real probability that he would say he did.  
  
"True..." she grinned. "A hit! A palpable hit!"  
  
"Shakespeare."  
  
"Something like that. And speaking of which..." she looked up and traced an outline with her finger. "There. That cloud looks a little like a quill pen."  
  
He didn't see it, himself. But he could play this game... "I would say that it looks like the tail of a fox."  
  
"Oh really? Where's the rest of the fox?"  
  
"Over there..." he pointed. "See? There's the nose, and the rest of the body..."  
  
She looked. "Huh. You're right. Hey, how about over there... it's the Venus de Milo."  
  
"Without her arms..."  
  
It must have been his usual dryness of tone that caused her to burst out giggling. He didn't see the humor in his statement, anyway. She spoke when she could breathe again. "You know, for an incredibly literal person, you're a lot of fun."  
  
He still didn't know what to say when she popped out with things like that. "Thank you."  
  
"You're welcome. Hey, that one kind of looks like a car..." 


	9. Day Sixteen

She was reading. She hadn't noticed him come up. Smith took a while to pause and reflect while he had a few precious moments to watch her, unseen.  
  
She was wearing jeans this time, and her shirt was slightly more decorative in contrast. Scoop-neck came down in a small slit just between her breasts and edged with lace, loosely tied with a leather thong. Her sleeves came down tight over her slender arms with a lcace edge and a bit of ruffle after that, of the same material as the shirt. Her jeans were tattered at the edges and he couldn't tell if she was still wearing the faded black boots underneath or just moccasins. Her flyaway wisps of hair were tucked behind a polished brass hair clip in the shape of a butterfly. The whole effect was actually quite striking. One slim hand with delicately tapered fingers shaded her eyes while the other held a book. Twilight of the Idols and The Antichrist. Heavy reading for a girl like her. Then again, she had been attempting to regale him with Hegelian philosophy the other day, so...  
  
The sunlight glinted off her hair, turning it more golden than light brown. She was beautiful.  
  
When she began to laugh at something she had read, he stepped forward. The movement caught her eye and she looked up, startled. "Oh! Hi... I'm sorry, didn't see you there." She even blushed a little. It was rather cute.  
  
Had he really just thought that? Smith repressed a shudder.  
  
"Twilight of the Idols."  
  
"Or, How to Philosophize with a Hammer. Yeah, I adore Nietzsche. He's so funny, even when he doesn't mean to be. Maybe especially when he doesn't mean to be. And the mustache!" She held up the book and showed him the picture on the cover, presumably of the author. "How can you not like a man with a mustache like that."  
  
"Very easily..." Smith said, realizing that this wasn't the answer he was supposed to give and yet not able to help himself.  
  
"Spoilsport." She stuck her tongue out at him.  
  
He ignored it and the accompanying (thankfully brief) impulse to return the gesture, sensing the humor in her response rather than any sort of anger. After a moment he sat down beside her. "Why are you reading it?"  
  
"Well, apart from the sheer humor value of the title 'How to Philosophize with a Hammer'... I've always wondered how you parse that. Is 'Hammer' the tool or the object to which he is speaking?"  
  
"I would imagine it's the tool..." Smith said slowly, although he had the sudden and disturbing picture of a man talking to a hammer. "Although given that he died insane... and that the book you're reading was the last work he published before being exiled to a mental institution... it is entirely possible that he meant the reader to speak to a hammer."  
  
She burst out laughing at the thought. "See, now, was that so hard? You made a joke! Are you tired, do you want to lie down?"   
  
"No," he said, more flatly than perhaps was warrented.  
  
Solace looked at him oddly. "Are you all right? Seriously... you look upset about something."  
  
"I..." he stopped. How did you explain to a young woman that you were upset because you were starting to enjoy spending time with her? No human would understand that. Even he as an AI could see that saying that to a young woman was an invitation for trouble. And then again... "It's complicated."  
  
She put her book down and turned towards him, legs still crossed. "Try me."  
  
"Are you sure? It... is personal."  
  
"If you're not comfortable..."  
  
"No... but it is personal to you."  
  
She frowned. "To me? I don't understand."  
  
"Neither do I..."   
  
Pause.  
  
"Okay. Try and explain it to me."  
  
He took a deep breath. "More and more I find myself..." he paused. How did he say it..."Looking forward to our talks together. Anticipating the enjoyment..." he resisted the urge to scowl at the word and trailed off.  
  
She waited for him to elaborate. When he didn't, she ventured a question. "And that's a bad thing?"  
  
"I... yes..." Was it? He wasn't sure anymore.  
  
"Why?"  
  
He stopped, frozen. How did he explain it to her without explaining about the Matrix? "My superiors... do not look kindly upon emotional attachments. To anyone."  
  
"And yet they sent you out here to talk to me to learn people skills?"  
  
He was actually surprised that she remembered. "Yes. Well... in a manner of speaking."  
  
She blinked at him, but let that go for the moment. "Don't they realize the contradiction in that kind of attitude?"  
  
He started to say something and then paused and thought about it. "Explain."  
  
"They want you to have more people skills. To be able to interact better with people, so that they will accept your presence more easily and facilitate your job. Am I correct?"  
  
He nodded.  
  
"But they don't want you to become attached to anyone. Now... and I don't know if that many people realize this but it seems elementary to me. A lot of times people who have no attachments to anyone... not even to a pet... find it more and more difficult to form even the most basic communication lines with other people, even in the course of their day to day job. Because they don't have attachments, because they don't have people they relate to as part of their routine, they lose the ability to relate to people."  
  
"But what about those who don't start with any attachments..."  
  
"They're called sociopaths," she said dryly. "Sociopaths are generally considered bad things by society." She paused. "Are you afraid that you're becoming sociopathic?"  
  
"Yes... No. Well..."  
  
She chuckled, waiting. He didn't know what answers she wanted, what answers he was supposed to give, what it was acceptable to give. What did she want from him? They stared at each other. She reached out to touch his cheek and he blinked wide eyes at her, caught behind the dark glasses that were supposed to protect him and that suddenly felt like a prison.   
  
"Tell you a secret," she said softly. "If you're worried about becoming a sociopath, and worried about getting too close to me.... chances are you're not in danger of becoming one. You're just a perfectly normal human being who's lead a sadly detached life."  
  
His lips curled back in a tiny snarl before he could stop himself.  
  
"What?" She drew back a little, startled. He shouldn't have done that.  
  
"Nothing."  
  
Her eyes narrowed. "You prefer being a sociopath?"  
  
"I don't..." he stood up and paced a little ways away from her. "It's complicated," he said again.  
  
"You're more comfortable with being a sociopath than you are with having emotions."  
  
That one struck a little too close to home. Still... "It is how I have lived my life as I have lived my life for a very long time. It... is hard to think of changing."  
  
She stared at him very levelly for several minutes. "This experiment isn't really above board, is it?"  
  
Deep breath. "No."  
  
"It's not about job efficiency, what your superiors have mandated, or anything like that, is it?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Then what is it about?"  
  
"It's complicated."  
  
"Explain it to me." Her voice wasn't nearly as friendly now. It was cold, steely... it was actually a similar tone to the one he customarily used. Suddenly he saw why humans found him so intimidating. He sighed. His shoulders slumped, his back turned to her.  
  
"If I do not perform my job satisfactorily there are... consequences."  
  
"What kind of consequences?"  
  
"Bad ones."  
  
She waited.  
  
"Termination for ... a person in my occupation means something more than merely unemployment. We are privy to vast amounts of information that cannot be shared with anyone, and my employers have a tendency to error on the side of caution when it comes to seeing that that information is never in a position to be shared with anyone."  
  
It didn't take very long at all for that to sink in. She went white first, then red. Then, slowly, her color returned to normal. "I see."  
  
"I am currently under review by the highest authority because it was felt that my performance was lacking. I was... caught off guard at a crucial moment when I should not have ben."  
  
More silence. "And things like you developing an emotional attachment to me... things like that are scene as hindering your job performance? Even though you were ordered to be more social, develop a better rapport with people? Is this a sort of damned if you do, damned if you don't scenario that you're supposed to solve to get back in their good graces?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
She frowned, sighed. He heard her stand up and felt her hands on the backs of his shoulders. He took a deep breath. This much contact, of this kind, was entirely new to him. He didn't know how to react.  
  
"I'm sorry."  
  
He turned to face her. "For what?"  
  
"I didn't know. I'm sorry I snapped at you before I knew all the facts... I should have asked first."  
  
He turned around and she let her hands fall before they touched his chest, for which he was very grateful.  
  
"It's all right," he said after a couple of seconds. And, really, it was. He didn't understand why.   
  
They stood in companionable if uncomfortable silence for a little while. Finally he sat down on the bench and she followed suit shortly after. They then spent several minutes very carefully not looking at each other. Smith wondered why humans put themselves through this sort of trouble, but when he tried to think of some way to avoid it or something to do differently to change it, he couldn't. It ended with Solace leaning her head over the back of the bench, and very close to his shoulder.   
  
"Want to go for a walk?" 


	10. Day Seventeen

A/N: None of the songs are mine, they're all traditional pieces (as far as I know). Tom and Michael aren't mine either, they're real people who belong to themselves.  
"Are you going to Scarborough Fair..."  
  
The haunting, lilting voice caught Smith's attention and froze him in his tracks as he approached the park. Solace wasn't there, but from the music coming from the small outdoor auditorium down the way, someone was performing. It probably wasn't a scheduled performance, but it had definitely drawn the attention of most of the usual park inhabitants. He followed the singing, intrigued.  
  
"Tell him to reap it in a sickle of leather..."  
  
Smith was running a query on the lyrics of the song, and so missed the next verse. He barely caught a glimpse of the singer as he looked up belatedly, suddenly realizing that this was the final verse of the song.   
  
He stopped in his tracks, shocked and surprised.  
  
Solace?  
  
"Remember me to one who lives there... for he was once a true love of mine."  
  
Applause greeted the final verse, and she blushed pink and shining in the sunlight that fell through the trees. The wind whipped her skirt around her ankles as she descended from the stage, and then she was lost in the not-inconsiderable crowd.   
  
Smith stood there for several minutes, frozen. Someone else with a guitar had wandered up to take her place, and it didn't look like the crowd was going to leave anytime soon. The guitarist began a second song (less melodious and pleasing to the ear, Smith thought, and then was angry at himself for thinking it) and the noise from the crowd died down.   
  
"Hey there, Sunshine..."  
  
Smith turned and stared at her. Apart from the sheer startlement that she could have snuck up on him... "Sunshine?"  
  
"You look happier than usual. Or at least, less deadpan."  
  
"I..." he stopped. He schooled his face into its usual blank expression. "Ah."  
  
"It's almost a pity..." she was smiling that Mona Lisa smile again. "You looked handsome with that sort-of smile on your face."  
  
"I what?"  
  
She laughed. "Gotcha."  
  
"... oh."  
  
"Did you like the singing?"  
  
He couldn't very well say no, now. "Yes... you have a beautiful voice." What in the name of the Matrix had possessed him to say that?  
  
She blushed. "Thank you... I like to sing... I haven't had any formal training." Her words tumbled over themselves in their haste to escape her mouth.   
  
"You sang beautifully," he repeated, not knowing why. They stood there in silence for a little while as he fumbled his sunglasses off, for lack of anything else to do. It was so awkward. Neither of them knew what to say; he was unused to giving compliments so freely and openly, and she was unused to hearing them from him as much as she might have desired them.  
  
"Sol!" It was a man's voice calling for her. Smith looked up to the stage where the guitarist was motioning her up, and it wasn't until Solace stepped back from him that he realized he'd been glaring. "Hey Sol!" the guitarist cried again, oblivious to the near-death experience he'd just had. "Come do a set with me! Beach Buchaillin Deas Ag Sile?"  
  
She gave one last look at Smith before moving to the stage, to the sound of raucous applause and cheering. "All right... but just a few songs, okay?"  
  
The guitarist grinned. Smith thought it was a particularly unpleasant grin. "All right. Hey, Beth!" he gestured to another woman, who protested half-heartedly and finally flounced her way onto the stage even as he was pounding out the opening chords.  
  
Beach Buchaillin turned out to be an Irish song. The music was closer to a slipjig than the sad melodies he had most often heard. Towards the last verse (in which the guitarist chimed in, spoiling it all) Solace had ended up lifting her skirt to below her knees and dancing about the stage. He'd had no idea that she knew how to do that. Another woman all three seemed to know came up and danced with her, followed by another man.  
  
Smith failed to notice the crowd of people that shrank back from him as he glared at the man who was dancing with Solace.  
  
"Mattie Groves!" Someone else in the audience called out. The agent looked around in vain for the speaker, and the guitarist slid right into the second song without pause to rest his fingers. The other two women descended from the stage, but the second man stepped up to the microphone and began singing.   
  
"Oh holiday, oh holiday, the first one of the year..."  
  
Smith listened in astonishment, not able to believe that the audience was cheering the song. The strange man took the man's part and the bulk of the song, but Solace chimed in (in a harsher voice than he'd heard before) with the woman's part. It was a song of infidelity, betrayal, and murder... he shook his head again. For humans to be cheering such a song... why would they do that?  
  
He missed the next song entirely while he was thinking about the lyrics to the last one. It wasn't until Solace's voice rang clear and clean above the crowd that he looked up again.  
  
"Chuaigh me chun aonaigh is dhiol me mo bho Ar chuig phunta airgid is ar ghini bhui or..."  
  
Smith nearly went cross-eyed trying to decipher the lyrics. It seemed not to be a pleasant song either. At least he could understand the cheering for this, though; most of the humans in the audience wouldn't have the slightest idea what the lyrics meant. They would simply be cheering the sound of the song, which was satisfactory.   
  
"O caide sin don te sin nach mhaineann sin do."  
  
There were two more songs after that, both traditional songs of various kinds. Neither of the songs was what a human would have called happy. Then Solace seemed to take her leave of the stage, and the two men and other woman took up a different slipjig that had several members of the audience in the front performing that strange human dance activity that they called 'moshing.'  
  
Smith tried not to think about the mechanics of 'moshing' to Irish music.  
  
"I don't know about you, but I need a drink." She had magically appeared at his elbow again. He thought that she must have been navigating crowds from an early age, to be able to move so quickly through the press of people.  
  
"Who was that man?" he asked, and cursed himself for asking, and then wondered at both actions.  
  
"The guitarist was Michael... he's the father of a young friend of mine. And the dancer was Tom... who is actually almost pathologically shy, although you wouldn't guess it from the way he loves acting on both stage and screen."  
  
"Oh."   
  
"Why?"  
  
"... Nothing."  
  
She paused, narrowing her eyes at him. "No, it's something. That's a something expression I see there. What's wrong?"  
  
He wasn't sure who he was more annoyed at: her, for pressing the question, or himself, both for feeling the original emotion and then feeling annoyance at feeling the emotion. And the annoyance... that was just a downward spiral. "Nothing."  
  
She skipped until she was standing, facing him, directly in front of him. Her arms folded over her chest, and she frowned. "Look at me. What is it?"  
  
He turned away.  
  
There was a gasp of recognition, of astonishment. "You're jealous. You're actually jealous!"  
  
"I am not." He said it although he knew that that exact reaction would seal the emotion in her mind.  
  
"You are... you're jealous of ... who? Michael? Tom?" she laughed a little at the thought, and he didn't find it amusing in the least. "Oh dear... poor Tom. Are you really jealous of...."  
  
"No."  
  
"Oh, my dear. My poor, poor dear..." she was chuckling, and it infuriated him. "Never be jealous of Tom. Among other things, he's quite happily married."  
  
That got her a startled look ."He is?"  
  
She nodded. "To a very wonderful woman, herself. They're so in love with each other that it's almost sickening."  
  
He forced himself to settle down. It didn't matter, anyway. "I suppose it was strange, seeing you with a crowd of friends. I have never ..." he paused. This was an opportunity that he shouldn't ignore. "I suppose, despite the fact that you've talked of your friends before, I never really expected to see you with a number of them."  
  
The look on her face said quite clearly that she wasn't buying whatever he was selling, but she would accept it and not press the issue. Thoughts of a treatise on the potentials in socially acceptable fictions passed through his mind, and he filed them away for a later report.   
  
"It doesn't happen... things like that concert in the park, they don't happen often. But today it seemed like we all ran into each other, one after the other after the other... and then Tom got up and started singing... so we all had a sort of an open mic session."  
  
"Oh."  
  
She slipped her arm into his as they walked. After a few steps he realized that she'd meant the gesture to be comforting, and allowed himself to relax. Even fifteen minutes later it all seemed far away, and it was only the two of them and the occasional pigeon, squirrel, or crazy homeless person again.   
  
"How many languages do you speak?" he asked after a second, remembering an earlier puzzlement.  
  
She laughed. "Speak? Only one. Sing? I can sing a lot of languages, but it's more mimicking the sounds than speaking. I understand what I'm singing if I'm given a translation, but..."  
  
"Ah..."  
  
"Some languages just have pretty songs... and I like to sing. Singing expresses a lot of feelings that words can't."  
  
He wasn't sure what to say to that. They walked along a little more, and she started to sing again.   
  
"Are you going to Scarborough Faire..." 


	11. Day Twenty Four

It was a week before he saw her again.  
  
At first he thought he'd done something that day in the park to offend her. It wouldn't have surprised him in the slightest; he was well aware of human penchant... especially human females... to extrapolate strange conclusions from fragmentary data, and take offense at them. As the days passed, though, he started to wonder. Then he started to worry. He was standing by the park benches, on the verge of looking for her through other channels.  
  
"Lookin' for your wife, Sir?"  
  
Agent Smith spun around, although he didn't have a single retort in mind.   
  
It was Joe, the homeless man. Somehow the Agent had wandered over near the table where Joe was playing chess with himself. The homeless man didn't look up from the board but the Agent had the uncanny feeling that he was very aware of the program's presence, nonetheless. "She ain't been around in a few days. You have a fight with the missus?"  
  
"We're not married," he said automatically. He didn't think the homeless man actually heard it, though. The sheer idea was preposterous.  
  
"Ah, you two are trying out that... what is is... trial sep-a-ra-tion." He talked as though he was Smith's grandfather, had Smith ever had a grandfather. Paternal, friendly, and knowing. The Agent didn't understand.   
  
"We're not..." he gave up. Humans could be so persistent in their delusions.  
  
"You'll work it out," the old man said confidently. He hadn't moved a chess piece during the entire conversation. His voice, accent, and tonality had changed entirely. "She's quite perceptive, and she seems to be very patient. Give it time. You two will work things out."  
  
He could see why humans found Dissassociative Identity Disorder so unnerving.  
  
"Why do you think there is something to work out?"  
  
Joe looked up at him, and it was a piercing gaze that made even Agent Smith shuffle uncomfortable. It was as though the human could see down to the depths of his core programming... the depths of his soul, Solace would have said. For the Agent, the gaze suggested that the crazy human knew exactly what Smith was... and that was even more unnerving. "You two have a way about you," was all the man said.  
  
"And what is that supposed to mean?"  
  
But Joe had gone back to his chess game, and wouldn't even acknowledge Smith's presence. The Agent shook his head and walked on. The conversation had been disturbing, and the fact that Solace was not there to interpret it was even more so. It suddenly occurred to him that despite what he thought were advances in the development of Agent-Human interaction were really Solace's work, or at least mostly her work... interpreting the signals for him, helping him to see what was going on. Without her, he was adrift. The thought both angered and confused him.  
  
"You look like you're enjoying the day."  
  
Smith whipped around. It never ceased to amaze him (if he were capable of amazement) that Solace was able to sneak up on him like that. It would have worried him a little if he had thought to be worried, especially as no other human he had ever encountered had that same ability.   
  
"Where have you been?" he asked, more sharply than he'd intended.  
  
She had the grace to look sheepish. "I'm sorry. I had some out of town business that came up a little too quickly for comfort. If I'd known you'd be this worried."  
  
Worried? Who was worried? "I wasn't worried."  
  
And she had the grace not to smirk when he was so obviously lying. "All right."  
  
He looked over at the crazy man... at least, he presumed Joe was crazy. Something in the previous conversation seemed to also indicate that Joe was lucid more often than not. "Shall we walk?" he said finally, not wanting to admit that he didn't want to be seen talking to Solace too often, not where Joe could take note of it.  
  
"All right." She took his arm in that peculiar human gesture, and they walked a little down one of the paths.   
  
"Did your work go well?"  
  
She glanced over at him. He realized belatedly that he had never shown any interest in what she did for a living before... he didn't even know what it was. "Fairly well. There were a couple tense moments, but we managed to get through it without anyone getting hurt."  
  
Memory flashed. "Hurt? Why would..."  
  
She smiled wryly "Not everyone thinks that the public has a right to know what's going on in the world. Sometimes they take a less than stellar view of journalists... and sometimes that less than stellar view involves the business end of a ..." Pause. "handgun."  
  
He turned his head to stare at her, very slowly. She stared right back at him as though the sunglasses weren't on, and he had the disturbing sense that glasses or no glasses, it didn't matter. "Someone pointed a gun at you?"  
  
Shrug. "It comes with the territory."  
  
"The territory of what?"  
  
"Of being a journalist. Especially for the fringe magazines, the ones that aren't regulated by governments or None Such Agency."  
  
He heard the capital letters, but he didn't understand them. "None Such Agency?"  
  
"The NSA. National Security Agency."  
  
"Oh." Pause. "Someone pointed a handgun at you?"  
  
She chuckled, but her eyes were serious. "It happens. We learn to deal with it, or we find a different line of work. I won't say that I wasn't in any danger... these people were pretty furious, and I have no doubt that if they wanted to shoot me they would have, but we managed to get out of it without bloodshed."  
  
She was shifting her weight as she said it. Something wasn't right. Aware of the implications yet willing to risk it, he grabbed her skirt and hiked it up to mid-thigh before she could resist.   
  
"Hey!"  
  
The backs of her thighs were lacerated with cuts no more than two days old. No bike shorts, this time.  
  
"No bloodshed?"  
  
She was blushing. He let her regain control of her skirt, and she smoothed it down nervously. "Well, minimal bloodshed. I had to scale a couple fences in a hurry."  
  
"Uh-huh."  
  
"Fences bite."  
  
"So they do."  
  
Her blushed deepened. Smith indulged himself in a smirk, and she looked away. "How on earth did you scale a fence and get those sorts of cuts?"  
  
"Uh... flipping over it backwards..." She now seemed more embarrassed by the perceived clumsiness of her actions rather than his trick with her skirt.  
  
"Backwards."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"You scaled a fence and... what, fell over it?"  
  
"Something like that."  
  
"As an... ace investigative reporter..." he pulled a term out of some long forgotten pulp genre. "Shouldn't you be better at such things than that?"  
  
She blushed again, started walking slowly. "I was in a hurry."  
  
"I see."  
  
He caught up with her easily, and they were silent for a little while. She wasn't hindered in her movement at least, which meant that the cuts were mainly superficial. It was almost a relief... and, as usual, an annoyance. Which reminded him of...  
  
"Someone pointed a handgun at you?"   
  
"That's the third time you've asked that."  
  
"And you didn't..." Pause. He searched for the proper phrase, the appropriate human phrase. "didn't feed it to him?"  
  
She laughed. "Contrary to popular belief, I am not the baddest chick on the block. I wasn't going to try and wrestle a handgun away from someone. That kind of thing could have got me shot."  
  
"You could have gotten shot anyway." Rage flickered across his vision and was gone. He hoped Solace hadn't caught it.  
  
"Why, Agent Smith. Anyone would think you were worried about me," she teased, looping her arm through his again.  
  
"I was not."  
  
"Uh-huh."  
  
"I was... concerned."  
  
"Was?"  
  
"Am... I am not!"  
  
"Mmm. Quote Shakespeare."  
  
He blinked. "Excuse me?"  
  
"Protesting too much, and all that."  
  
"I..." he stopped. She had a point. Much as he hated to admit it to either of them. "All right."  
  
"So you do carry some human emotions after all."  
  
He didn't answer. It would have been a disturbing enough thought that he was getting so proficient at mimicking human emotions, but the thought that he was actually developing them... that was intolerable. And yet he was. How in the name of the Sentience had that happened? He would have given a great deal to find out.   
  
"I suppose..." he said after a while.  
  
She picked up on his unease. "What's wrong?"  
  
"Nothing."  
  
"Bullshit." As usual, her use of profanity made him stop and blink. "Something's wrong. Something to do with you being worried about me."  
  
"I..." he paused. "I am not used to being worried about anyone. It seems ... wrong, somehow."  
  
She wrinkled her nose. "You sound like Spock. Why is it wrong to be worried about someone?"  
  
"It creates weakness."  
  
"Huh." She digested that for a little while. "Why?"  
  
Pause. "To be concerned about another person inevitably brings up the prospect of aiding that person at a cost to oneself."  
  
She frowned "... Now you're not just talking about worrying about someone, you're talking about all emotions tying one person to another."  
  
Pause. He blinked. "I suppose so."  
  
"You realize that includes love, affection, hate, contempt... everything."  
  
He stopped in midstep and stared at her, removing his glasses. "No..."  
  
She nodded. "It's a common misconception that hate is the opposite of love. It's not. Apathy, lack of feeling is the opposite of love. Hate is just the..." she searched for the word. "Inverse, I guess."  
  
The implications of that slammed into his equivalent of a brain. "That's..."  
  
Solace shrugged. "Think about it. Strong emotions of one kind means that the person is capable of strong emotions of another kind. But if a person simply isn't capable of strong emotions, then... well, nothing anyone can do is going to help. Love and hate are both strong emotions. But apathy is the absence of emotion. It's what makes someone a sociopath... their inability to connect, to feel anything."  
  
Smith rubbed his temples in an unconsciously human gesture. It was too much information, between her statements and the data he was downloading on the subject. "I don't..." It didn't make sense. He hated the humans, he did not love them. "It doesn't..."  
  
She waited, calmly, patiently. All around them the sounds and sensations of the park went on; birds flew and sang, trees bent to the light breeze, leaves twirled. Silence gave him time to think. Time to regain his composure. Everything stood out in sharp clarity, the colors, the lines, everything. Solace stood ... and she seemed to be the only thing hazy, blurry in his vision. After a few seconds his vision cleared, and he could think again.   
  
"It doesn't make sense."  
  
She nodded, biting her lip a second before settling on what she would say. "Give it time."  
  
He nodded. They kept walking. He had a lot to think about. 


	12. Day Twenty Five

She was waiting for him the next day, a peculiar expression on his face. It took him a couple of minutes to cross-correlate her behavior patterns with the larger databases, and then he realized. She was waiting for him, not in the usual fashion of someone waiting for a friend to show up, but rather waiting for him to decide whether or not to approach her. It was confusing... she had never given him that choice before. She was giving him the choice as to whether or not he wanted to continue their association.  
  
Did he, really? He didn't know.   
  
She waited. She had obviously seen him, but was giving him the choice to approach or not. He presumed it had been triggered by their conversation yesterday, although he didn't know why then. He supposed it was part of the never-ending mystery that was humanity... although Solace never acted like a typical human. She had never acted like a typical anything. He didn't know what to make of her, and that made him irritable.   
  
So should he go to her? He didn't know that either.  
  
Surprising himself, he walked up to meet her. And what was even more surprising was that it wasn't because of the mandate imposed on him by the Mainframe, and it wasn't because of his desire to discover more about the humans he was assigned to watch and safeguard. His agreement to speak with her and to engage in whatever activity she had planned wasn't born out of the orders to study her. He was starting to realize that it wasn't about species, and it wasn't about humans or computers. It wasn't about the differences between them, and it wasn't about enlightenment or understanding. It was all about Solace.   
  
She smiled as he walked up. He still didn't understand why she was glad to see him.  
  
"And how are you this fine day?"  
  
He looked up. "Actually, it seems as though it might rain."  
  
"And as you should remember, rain does not always preclude the possibility of a nice day."  
  
"True. Unlike most human beings, you seem to take a perverse enjoyment in the rain."  
  
She laughed. "It's not a perverse enjoyment. It's a perfectly natural enjoyment. It's better than a lot of people who want their entire life to be climate controlled."  
  
He couldn't very well argue with that, and said so. "You're strange."  
  
"You keep saying that."   
  
"I know."  
  
She grinned "One of these days you're going to have to get used to me."  
  
"But not today."  
  
"No... not today."  
  
They stared at each other for a couple of seconds, until lightning crashed overhead, loud enough to make even Solace jump. "On second thought, maybe staying outside isn't a good idea..."  
  
Even as she said it the rain started to pour. "I thought you like the rain," he couldn't resist needling. The water was starting to drip off his glasses and down his nose.  
  
"I like the rain, but this is thick can't-see-your-hand-in-front-of-your-face downpour!" She had to shout to be heard above the rain.  
  
"Good point."  
  
She looked around, although he didn't know why, if she couldn't see anything. "There! There's a really nice little coffee shop on that end." She grabbed his hand and started running, and he was dragged after her.  
  
"Hey! Walking here!" She yelled. It was sort of amusing, he'd never seen her cross the streets before. She darted through the cars without regard for lights or personal safety. He would have been worried if he'd been human.  
  
"You are insane!" he shouted when they finally reached the other side. "That car nearly hit you!"  
  
"Almost only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades..." they walked in and suddenly could hear each other again. "And nuclear warfare. Ahh, blissful dryness."  
  
The coffee shop was almost deserted. Smith supposed that other humans had checked their weather reports and decided to remain at home or in the office for the day. "You're not dry."  
  
"I will be eventually. Besides, there's no more water falling from the sky. Or ceiling in this case." She leaned her rain-drenched forearms on the counter. "Hot chocolate, tall."  
  
He blinked. "Hot chocolate?"  
  
She shrugged. "I don't need the caffeine, I need the heat. And I like the sugar. Thanks..." she sipped at the hot chocolate, resulting in whipped cream collecting on her nose. He stared at it. "What?"  
  
"Your...nose..."   
  
She licked it off. She had a long tongue. He stared. She laughed. "Come on, let's go sit down."  
  
It took him a couple of seconds, but he eventually managed to regain his composure enough to sit down at a small table across from her. She kept getting whipped cream on her nose, until it finally dissolved into the dark chocolate drink. "Ow..." she winced. "Hot."  
  
"You did order hot chocolate."  
  
"Yeah... and it's a fine balance between drinking it too fast and drinking it slow enough that you've got too much cooled chocolate..." she was talking very fast, and drinking faster. "But at least it warms you up."  
  
Humans were so strange. "Are you feeling warmer?"  
  
She nodded. "Much... not much dryer, but..." she paused, and he waited for a second before following her gaze to the front window. "Well, at least it's better than being out there."  
  
Something she had said a long time ago came back to him. "And this is part of what you like about the rain?"  
  
"Yeah... being inside, warm and dry and drinking hot chocolate or something... while outside it's raining and storming or snowing and windy... there's something comforting about that." She smiled, pleased that he remembered. "Of course, ideally that would include the dry part."  
  
"You'll dry off soon enough." He thought briefly about accelerating the time it would take for her clothes to dry and decided against it.  
  
"Yeah. Well, most of me. My shoes will probably squelch all day."  
  
Silence. She finished her hot chocolate, and he started to speed up the pace on his own clothing. She was right about that, at least; wet clothing (and especially wet shoes) were uncomfortable in the extreme, even to his not-flesh. He took off his sunglasses and was in the midst of cleaning them when he felt her hand brushing at his hair.  
  
"What?"  
  
She blushed. "You had droplets in your hair.... Sorry."  
  
Pause. "Why?"  
  
"I don't know..."  
  
Ah. Another one of those could-be romantic gestures. He smirked, just a little, and she confirmed his guess with another blush. "It's all right."   
  
She coughed, covering her embarrassment. "Don't you want anything to drink... or...."   
  
He walked up, hiding a victorious grin, and ordered another hot chocolate for her and a coffee for himself. Not that he needed to eat or drink, but he could go through the motions. On a whim he also ordered a slice of cheesecake, and somehow managed to juggle the whole thing back to the table.  
  
"Cheesecake?" She laughed. "How decadent."  
  
He chuckled, then barely managed to keep his bemusement from his face. Why had he chuckled? Never mind. "It seemed appropriate. And perhaps the cheesecake will alleviate some of the discomfort from the dampness..."  
  
"Oh, cheesecake solves all problems..." She laughed, nibbling the cheesecake from her fork in what was blatantly a seductive manner, even for him. The mischievous look in her eyes, however, indicated that she was not being at all serious in her seduction.   
  
It was a little unnerving that he was reading her so easily, so readily. Right up there with the sudden chuckle from earlier. "Does it?"  
  
"Mm-hmm..." she nodded. "It makes all cares and worries go bye-bye." It seemed to for her, at least. She savored her next few bites with pleased little hums, eyes closed, head tilted back, exposing her damp and lightly tanned throat.   
  
"Are there drugs in the dessert?" He realized as the last syllable left his lips that it was a strange question for a human to ask. With a little luck and a great deal of latitude on her part, she would assume he was teasing. He made a mental note to phrase his questions in more acceptable terms in the future. Fortune was with him, though, and she just laughed as though he were teasing.  
  
And then he stopped. "You know, it's entirely possible that there's some chemical compound in the cream cheese and sugar that acts like a drug. I never thought about that. But it is pretty odd that cheesecake is so widely considered a decadent and sensual food." She shrugged. "Maybe it's just the texture ... and the sugar."  
  
"That's probably it."  
  
The subject was dropped. Solace had finished half of the cheesecake and a good portion of the hot chocolate, and was settling down into a relaxed pose. She seemed to be drying off, too. Behind the counter, the attendant was cleaning one of the machines, ignoring the both of them. It wasn't the park but it still managed to be quiet, peaceful. Solace looked up at him with an odd expression in her eyes, and he met her gaze just as she had forked off a bit of the sweet and held it out to him. "Ever had cheesecake?"  
  
"I..." he blinked, too startled to do anything but offer an honest answer. "No."  
  
"Here... try some."   
  
He had a split second in which to decide. Two courses were available to him: the first was the more benign and safe, and involved merely taking the fork from her hand and trying the dessert. The second, eating it off of her fork as she most likely intended him to do, meant that he was returning her flirtatious gestures. Time halted while he considered his options, stunned and... was that fear lurking behind his thoughts? Surely not. Surely he was still immune to such human blandishments as she was offering, and fear wasn't in the common reactions anyway. But his thoughts were chasing themselves in inefficient circles. What to do now? The safe or the dangerous path? And what was behind those classifications anyway... how could a machine such as himself find any safety or danger in the company of a human? Time was starting to resume its normal flow as he leaned forward, deciding in an instant that provoking a further reaction would serve the Sentience's purposes (not his purposes, no, never his) more than playing it safe.   
  
Her face was entirely unreadable as he tasted the cheesecake, delicately taking it from her fork without moving more than neck and head. Dammit.  
  
"Delicious." His face did not change expression, his voice betrayed no feeling.   
  
"I rather think so," she licked the fork (for some reason) and kept nibbling, alternating the cheesecake with sips from the surely-tepid hot chocolate. Her shoulders slumped a fraction of an inch, as though she were relaxing after some tension. He had an idea what it had been.   
  
"Certainly a good choice for a day such as this." Another statement that he didn't know the meaning of. Or the reason for his uttering it. At least it seemed to work.  
  
"Yeah..." her voice trailed off as she looked out the window. The rain showed no signs of slowing. She shivered. "At least it's warm inside."  
  
"At least it is, at that."  
  
Neither of them said anything for a long time. It was almost a relief. 


	13. Day Twenty Six

The next day dawned bright and clear. Solace was playing with one of the dogs in the park when he walked up, and he stood back and allowed the human to move on before going up to say hello to her.  
  
"Well, you look none the worse for yesterday's soaking." She smiled, as though nothing had happened between them yesterday. Perhaps for her, it hadn't.  
  
"Neither do you."  
  
Shrug. "It's just weather. It won't kill you... if you're careful."  
  
"Indeed."   
  
Pause. "What do you want to do today?"  
  
The question made Smith stare at her as though she had lost her mind. What did he want to do today? When did he ever want to do anything?  
  
She came up with something when he didn't. "Come on... I know where there's a nice pond... we can feed the ducks."   
  
"All right."  
  
They walked into the woods, going further than he had been before. It occurred to him that he had never downloaded the maps for this area, and he briefly considered doing so. He thought about it as he watched Solace practically skipping down the path in front of him, watched the sunlight glint off the golden threads in her skirt, the dust motes on her boot. That must, he thought absently, be a new skirt. He hadn't seen it before.  
  
He didn't upload the maps, and kept following her.  
  
"And here we are..."  
  
She stood at the edge of a not inconsiderably sized pond, ringed around the edge by thick trees. Ducks were indeed swimming over the surface as well as some geese, and young of both kinds followed their parents. Other than the animals there was barely a ripple on the water.   
  
"Do you have something with which to feed the ducks?"   
  
"As a matter of fact... yes." She smiled her Mona Lisa smile and pulled a small cylinder of what appeared to be bread crumbs out of a skirt pocket. "Hold out your hand."  
  
"This was not in the job description," he muttered, but did so. She poured a quarter or so of the bread crumbs into his hand and then poured some into her own hand, stepping up to the edge of the pond.  
  
"What is the purpose of this exercise?" He had to ask; he couldn't see any reason behind it, himself.  
  
She chuckled. "You sound like some sort of science fiction military commander. The purpose of this exercise, as you so quaintly put it, is to relax. Have fun." She began to scatter bread crumbs on the surface of the water. "Feed the ducks."  
  
"Ah."   
  
True to their greedy nature, the ducks swam over and immediately started eating the scattered crumbs. Solace knelt down by the edge of the pond. "Among other things, feeding ducks like this is an exercise designed to instill patience. It takes a relatively long time for the ducks to..." A particularly daring bird swam up and grabbed a beakful of crumbs from her hand, and she fell on her butt in the mud at the edge of the pond.  
  
"You were saying?" Smith actually felt himself repress a chuckle of amusement.  
  
"Okay, they're not normally pre-carnivorous..." she laughed, pulling herself upright. "Yuck."  
  
"You are covered in mud."  
  
"Thank you, Captain Observo, master of the obvious."  
  
"I was only saying..." Pause. "What are you doing?"  
  
"Going swimming."  
  
"... why?"  
  
Shrug. "I'm already muddy and dirty. I might as well be wet in the process."  
  
"But... you're..."  
  
Splash.  
  
She resurfaced a few feet from the edge after diving cleanly into the water. Her shirt, he was dismayed to notice, was entirely transparent. She wasn't wearing any sort of undergarment, and her pale skin showed right through the soft material. With preternatural clarity he saw every curve of her chest, the puckered skin of nipples drawn taut by the cold water. Her skin came in three shades... tanned over most of her body, pale over her breasts and upper abdomen, and darkest pink over aureole and nipple.   
  
Her hair was three shades darker and plastered all over her face, and she was treading water. Her hair was also a good deal safer to think about than her chest.   
  
"Half-naked..." he finished, five minutes later.  
  
"I'm still wearing a t-shirt and bike shorts..." she laughed. "Don't be so stodgy. Besides, my skirt's a mess." She swam closer to shore and picked up her skirt, dragging it into the water with her.  
  
"But... you're...." He shook his head, taking off his sunglasses. This was bothering him so much more than it should. "What if someone comes along?"  
  
Shrug. "No one walks on this path, as far as I can tell. I've been here dozens of times and every time I've been the only one here. Relax. Enjoy yourself." She grinned. "Feed the ducks."  
  
He did. "You are still behaving very immodestly."  
  
"Oh come on..." she flipped over onto her back and began lazily paddling around the pond. "Number one, since when have you known me to behave according to the standards of modesty I should follow. Number two, there's no one here I don't trust with the knowledge of what my body looks like beneath the clothing. Number three, that knowledge is only taboo, not as dangerous or scary as most people would have me ... or you... believe."  
  
Pause. "You are strange."  
  
She sat up again, treading water. Her mismatched eyes gleamed. "And you say that to me every day."  
  
"It never ceases to be true."  
  
"Indeed." The skirt plunged underneath the water, out of sight. "Why this time?"  
  
"You are much less modest than ..." he hesitated to say it. "Normal people."  
  
She laughed. "There are so many more things to worry about, it never ceases to amaze me why human beings constantly invent new ones."  
  
"Such as?"  
  
"Physical modesty. It's just a body. Just a shell, a conglomeration of organs, connectors, and bio-electrical impulses. Why worry about covering up the packaging?"  
  
There was that sense of unreality again, as though somehow their roles had been reversed. "It is a common cultural taboo..."  
  
She flipped onto her back again and made a rude gesture at the sky. "Oh, cultural taboos are 99% crap, and you're smart enough to know that. The only realistic reason to wear clothing is to protect the body from the elements. It's a perfectly fine day, Smith. Take off your jacket and relax."  
  
Well, there couldn't be any harm in that. He shrugged off the suit jacket and indulged himself enough to create an appropriate outcropping on a nearby tree, hanging it up with care for the nonexistent material. And then he turned around.  
  
"Solace!"  
  
She laughed. The pond rippled. "What?"  
  
"Put ..." She was very nearly a natural blond. He blinked. "Put your clothes back on."  
  
"I'm wearing my shirt."   
  
She was just doing it to bother him. Why was the sun so warm today? "Barely. Put your clothes back on."  
  
"Spoilsport. It's hot. I'm enjoying the cool water. Relax."  
  
He was a computer program. She was a creature of flesh and bone and blood in a tank of goo, a battery. There was no importance to how she chose to manipulate her avatar. If it came down to it, she was really naked anyway, with the wires and cables connecting her... naked in the pod of goo... he shook his head.  
  
"I am perfectly relaxed."  
  
"No you're not. You're practically shaking." She sank back down into the water and was visible only from the shoulders up, much to his relief. "Honestly, if it bothers you..."  
  
"No... you are right."  
  
Pause. "Oh?"  
  
"There is no..." Pause. Swallow. He knocked back the revulsion he felt at being subjected to human responses, human indignities. "There is no real reason behind the taboo against nudity."  
  
"It's a silly taboo," she nodded. "And I will admit, normally I conform to it because it's the law of the land as well as the custom. But every once in a while I find a nice pond and I can't resist." Her feet kicked lazily at the water. "It's so nice. And cool."  
  
He walked over to the edge and dipped a hand in. She was right, it did feel warm against his approximation of skin. "I still don't understand how you arrived at this conclusion."  
  
She swam over, close enough to talk without shouting and yet far enough that he could see little more than the outline of her body. "It took some doing. After a while... I guess I just met someone who forced me to look a the world in a completely different way."  
  
"Who?"  
  
She looked away. "No one you know... an old boyfriend."  
  
"And how did he ... open your eyes?"  
  
She stared sharply at him. Her blue eye glinted nearly azure in the light from the water, while her green eye seemed so dark as to be almost muddy. "Long story. Mostly ... well, philosophy with a hammer."  
  
"That doesn't explain anything."  
  
She looked away. "It's a long story. And it was a bad breakup, anyway.":  
  
Pause. "All right."  
  
Long silence. "He did make me think, though."  
  
Smith knelt down at the water's edge. "About what?"  
  
"About things. About life. About why we do what we do, and whether or not it's important."  
  
"And what conclusions did you draw?"  
  
Another pause. She stared at the sky and thought about it. "That we should choose what we do a lot more carefully than we are accustomed to... because everything is important."  
  
"Excluding clothing?"  
  
She laughed. "Not that way. I mean, everything we do, everything we say is important. Everything we do or say that affects another thinking being."  
  
"Whether or not..."  
  
"Whether or not it is custom or habit. We've got a lot of bad habits, humans do. And we don't break them because tradition, culture tells us not to."  
  
Silence. "And have you come up with a solution to this dilemma?"  
  
"No... not really. Except to pay attention to what's going on... what I'm doing. And do things... with more deliberation than I used to."  
  
"Ah."  
  
Pause. "That's really what deliberately means, after all, isn't it? Or it should be. Doing things with deliberation, with sureness."  
  
He watched her swim in restless circles around the pond, wondering what had happened to the conversation. "I suppose."  
  
"You suppose..."  
  
Silence. "You are having a crisis of faith?"  
  
"I guess I am, at that. Which is funny, because this way of thinking was supposed to deal with those. But now..."  
  
"You are no longer performing your actions with deliberation?"  
  
"Maybe less deliberation. I don't know. And, that's really the problem isn't it?"  
  
"Is it?"  
  
She nodded. "I find myself... having doubts."  
  
"You are acting with less sureness than you used to."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"And you are doubting yourself."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Why?"  
  
She blinked. "I..." Paused. "I don't know. It seems like some of my actions are having consequences I... did not intend."  
  
He opened his mouth to say something reassuring and then stopped. She deserved better than platitudes. He thought about it. "Is that necessarily a bad thing?"  
  
She opened her mouth and then stopped, thinking. "No... no, not really. But..."  
  
This, at least, was ground with which he was familiar. "All our actions have unintended consequences. If we knew every outcome of every action, there would be no need to act because we would already know what would happen. The future is so malleable, and there are so many possibilities, that it would take more algorithms and more mathematics than we are capable of to calculate each and every one of them." As he spoke his eyes widened, his thoughts turning inward. It was true, and it was relevant to his existence as well as hers. "Just because a thing is unintended does not mean it is unwelcome." He wished he hadn't said that.  
  
She had, while he had been musing out loud, floated up in front of him. He could see down a lot farther than he wanted to, and she was still wearing only her soaking, transparent shirt. "When did our roles become reversed?" she asked, smiling up at him from the water. "I thought I was the one who was supposed to dispense sage, philosophical advice."  
  
"You seemed to need it more than I did, today."   
  
Pause. "Maybe I did. Probably," she amended. "I probably did. Wise man..." she smiled, reaching up to brush leaves out of his hair, or at least making the token gesture. "Very wise man."  
  
He knelt there at the water's edge for a little while, waiting for both of them to digest the words. It was hard, very hard. Finally he stood up, almost expecting his knees to pop sharply, as a human's might. He was almost startled to find that they didn't.  
  
"Put your clothes back on."  
  
She laughed, stuck her tongue out at him, and swam further out. "Yes, mother." 


	14. Solace

Solace curled up on the tiny mattress, closed her eyes, and wept.   
  
At first it was just a trickle of tears, lying on her back and staring at the ceiling and feeling the moisture slowly slide down her face. Her thoughts spun in her head, out of control, crazy. It was absolutely ridiculous. When she'd arranged that last meeting she'd had a perfectly clear knowledge of what she was going to do, what she wanted to do. It had all been so decisive, so correct. She had known exactly what to say, because she had known that it had to be the way she had decided, and nothing else could come to pass. At least, that's what she'd thought at the time. But now it just wasn't as certain as it had been, and she was so confused.  
  
She drew her knees up in tighter, closer to her chest. If she had been plugged in, he probably would have been there. He would have tried to find some sort of comforting words, dried her tears, held her close. Which was ironic... out here in the so-called real world, she couldn't let anyone know what was going on, and it was all cold steel and dank mattresses. Not very comforting.  
  
But then, what was the difference? Why should a collection of electrical impulses and data packets be more comforting than steel, than cotton, than real people? She didn't know. It seemed almost unreasonable that she had ... or thought she had... so deep a connection with a computer program when she hadn't managed to make any such connection with a live human being. Was she somehow deficient? Lacking? Was there something missing in her that made her incapable of relating to humans? Maybe she should have stayed plugged in, a mockery of human flesh and more like a collection of code than anything physical and chemical. Maybe she wasn't a proper woman at all, but a sexless creature raised to be a woman but without the right impulses and responses. She sat up, staring down at her body and wondering which part had betrayed her. This just wasn't right. None of it was right. None of it should be happening, and she didn't understand what was happening to her.  
  
The knock on the door made her jump and screech. By the time her heart rate had returned to normal the person had already announced himself. "Hey Sol, it's Neo... are you okay in there?"  
  
She wiped her eyes and sat up, pulling herself together as much as she could. "Fine..." her voice was cracking. That wouldn't do. "I'm fine. Don't worry about it."   
  
There was a long pause. She didn't hear his footsteps fading; clearly, he wasn't buying today. "Can I come in?"   
  
"Sure..."  
  
The door opened. Neo hadn't quite yet gotten his full growth of hair, and it still resembled peach fuzz more than an actual do. He was rather cute, though, even with the plugs. She smiled weakly as he walked in and sat down next to her.  
  
"You look like crap."  
  
"Thanks."   
  
They shared a wry grin. "You didn't come to dinner, we figured something might be wrong. I know the single-cell isn't that good, but..."  
  
She chuckled, but without much enthusiasm. "Wasn't hungry."  
  
He looked at her, dark eyes meeting her pale, bi-colored stare. He still wasn't buying, and she looked away before he did. "Sol, I've been around you long enough to know you better than that. You're the only one of us who can actually stomach that single-cell crap, and I still don't know how you do it. You wouldn't come to dinner just because you couldn't slurp down the snot."  
  
She giggled a bit, pulling her knees up to her chest again. "Seriously, I wasn't hungry. Figured I'd get a nap in before my shift."  
  
"Tank says you've stopped pulling extra duties."  
  
Her face went blank. "Caught."  
  
"Come on, Sol. What's up?"  
  
She took a deep breath. Tried to figure out some way to pose the question that wouldn't cause undue suspicion. Something that wouldn't alert even Neo to her current state, although he was usually oblivious to emotions unless the person came out and told him. Typical male. Not that she wasn't fond of him. "I've been wondering..."  
  
He waited for her to continue. When she didn't, he reached around her and pulled the blanket up and around her shoulders, rubbing them gently. It was the contact she had been craving, if not the person she wanted it from, and it was reassuring. "You've been wondering... what?"  
  
"Is there..." she swallowed. Harder than she thought. "Is there something wrong with me?"  
  
"Wrong with you... how?"  
  
"With my emotions... like I'm... broken."  
  
He stared at her for so long that she started to think he didn't understand. Then he leaned back the short distance against the wall, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her gently against him. "What makes you think that?"  
  
"I don't know..." she started to relax, with her cheek pressed against his chest and her short hair tickling his chin. "Just... stuff that's been happening lately."  
  
"Has Dis been after you again?" Neo asked, sharp concern laced all through his voice.   
  
"No... no, for once, Dis has been perfectly reasonable and stayed the hell out of my way." Solace shook her head wryly. Dis, the latest member of the Neb crew, wasn't easy to work with for the female contingent. Trinity he had finally accepted as out of his reach, with her too-obvious involvement with Neo. Solace, however, had remained a mystery and a constant annoyance to him, and he made it known to everyone on the ship, at great length.  
  
"Then what's up?"  
  
She sighed. She was going to have to tell him, or he'd think it was Dis' fault. "There's..." How the hell did she explain this? "This guy..."  
  
Solace braced herself for the expected 'a-ha!' Mercifully, though, Neo remained silent. He waited for her to continue, and prompted her when she didn't. "Is he nice?"  
  
"He's an absolute pill," she said with feeling, then laughed. "He's nice... very nice, in his own way. Reclusive... we met up on my last assignment... at the very beginning, months ago. Things just sort of... got out of hand."  
  
Pause. "How far out of hand?"  
  
"Well, not that far... I didn't sleep with him if that's what you're asking. But ... well, he knows I have feelings for him now. At least, I think I do."  
  
"And you're thinking that because you don't want to get involved with anyone who isn't unplugged, that you don't have any real emotions for real people?" Her breath hissed out between her teeth. Neo was sharper than he looked... sharp enough to cut them both, if she wasn't careful.  
  
"Something like that."  
  
"Sol, you should know as well as I do that that's complete bullshit. Just because you fell for someone who was still plugged in doesn't make them any less human. It just ... makes things difficult, that's all." He shifted position and looked down at her as she made hedging noises. "That's not all?"  
  
"Not quite..." He wasn't going to understand unless she told him. He wasn't going to understand if she told him. She'd gotten herself into a completely untenable situation. Dammit. "It's ... more complicated than that."  
  
"How is it more complicated... are they on another ship? Or ..." he trailed off, confused.  
  
"He's..." She swallowed, tears leaping to her eyes out of sheer terror and anticipation of his reaction. "It's hard to explain."  
  
"Sol?" he reached down and drew her further into his lap, a worried expression on his face. "C'mon, you can talk to me. I promise, I won't tell anyone. Not even Trinity."  
  
It wasn't Trinity she was worried about. Trinity might even understand. "Not even Morpheus?"  
  
Pause. "Not if you don't want me to... Sol, what's this about?"  
  
He was going to kill her. He, of all people, was going to kill her. And if he didn't, Smith would, once they went after the Agent. "It's about Agent Smith."  
  
Neo didn't get it at first, it was just too much for him to handle... bless the man. "Agent Smith is after this guy?"  
  
"No..." She swallowed, and couldn't look at her friend. There was a very long silence as the statement rearranged itself in Neo's mind, and she saw comprehension slowly dawn over his face. When he didn't say anything for a little while she looked up at him, afraid of what was coming next. "Neo?"  
  
"I'm here..." His arms tightened around her, but it was more reflex than anything. "How... did this happen?"  
  
"I don't know. Well, I sort of know... Morpheus and the Elders asked me to study him, after I heard about Morpheus' talk with him... it... whatever... and after I told them my idea. And things just... got out of hand."  
  
Neo bit back whatever he had been going to say at first and nodded instead. "I guess they did." There was a short silence. "And that's why you think you're... messed up?"   
  
She winced. "I guess there really isn't a better way to put it. Yeah."  
  
"Shit."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
She felt him take a deep breath and let it out over the course of a minute. "He knows who you are?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"And he hasn't gone after you, or tried to kill you, or anything like that yet? Wait... you said he was... nice?"  
  
"He's been acting... well, he didn't know who I was until a few days ago. But... up until that point he was just acting like a perfectly normal, reclusive, grumpy federal agent. And even after he found out he didn't try to chase me, or kill me, or anything. We just... talked."  
  
"You just talked."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
Pause. Deep sigh from Neo. "For what it's worth, Solace, I don't think you're deficient, or emotionally screwed up. I think you're just..." He paused again. "I don't know what to think. I didn't think this could happen."  
  
There was a long silence. "Honestly," she said after a while. "I didn't think anything was really going to come of it. I didn't think the Agents could be humanized, much less that they were displaying actual human emotions. I thought they were just trying to interrogate Morpheus, but I figured it was an interesting theory to try, and it was something new and innovative that we hadn't tried before. I didn't think it would actually..."  
  
"... work."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
When he actually laughed out loud it startled her, making her jump a little in his arms. He hugged her, soothing her, but chuckled anyway. "You really got yourself into a weird one this time... Sol, baby, I wish I had some advice for you."   
  
"But you don't."  
  
"No... hang on. Have you thought about going to see the Oracle?"  
  
She blinked. She tipped her head backwards and looked up at Neo, whose gaze in return held no sign of anger or accusation. It was more of a relief than she had imagined. "No... that's a good idea."  
  
He kissed her forehead. "Good to know I'm not entirely useless after all."  
  
"You're not useless." She laughed, hugging him. "Just because I don't believe in any prophecies or one true saviors doesn't mean I think you're useless."  
  
He grinned. "So nice of you. Feeling better?"  
  
"Yeah..." she was surprised to find that she was. "Much better."  
  
"Good. Come out and get something to eat in a bit, will you? Some of us worry..."   
  
She laughed as she scooted off of his lap, allowing him to stand and move over to the door. "I'll come out and snag some snot in a bit. I have to think about this..."  
  
He nodded, still smiling, but still serious. "Let me know what you figure out, okay?"  
  
"Okay. Hey, Neo?"   
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"... Thanks." 


	15. Day Twenty Seven

It was drizzling yet again. Solace walked through the raindrops, not bothering to put on anything that would keep her from getting wet. As much as she looked forward to these daily talks with Smith, sometimes the weather really did not cooperate. Today she had wanted to take him on a much longer walk around the park, and maybe go feed the ducks again. Although ... she blushed. Skinny dipping, or as close as she had come to it yesterday, was definitely out of the question. Too risky at this juncture, too dangerous. She'd have to think of something else. This was really starting to be fun, though.  
  
She still had to come up with more activities for them to do. Walking in the park was fun, but it was also starting to become boring. They'd gone through most of the areas she knew, and she was starting to run out of new things for them to see or new topics of discussion. The tradition of walking through the park needed something to spice it up. She'd have to think of something.  
  
Solace was busy thinking on that topic when the first young man walked up. "Hey there, chica... you got the time?"  
  
Something in his tone of voice alarmed her, would have alarmed her even if she'd still been plugged in. Worse, right now she had to play it as a copper top, since she was in her copper top clothes. "Yeah, it's..." she started to look at her watch, heart sinking with dismay. This wasn't going to be good.  
  
She was unsurprised when someone grabbed her from behind and whipped her around, grinning toothily. The number of thugs who surrounded her, though, was disheartening.   
  
"C'mon, chica. It's gonna be a party."  
  
Crap.  
  
"No thanks, guys, look. It's raining, I don't think anyone's really in the mood, why don't we just..."  
  
"Aw, c'mon. I'm in the mood."   
  
A couple of the gangers started tugging at her skirt, flicking up ends of it. She pushed the fabric down. "Stop it."  
  
"Make us."   
  
She stared at them. She weighed her options, wondering if she dared break her cover even in front of these gang bangers. She watched the matrix reflect itself in their eyes, realizing just as one of them grabbed her and spun her around that this situation could get much, much worse. If she broke cover and the fight lasted long enough (which it might, oh it very well might) the Agents would be alerted to her presence. Agents who were nowhere near as benign as Smith.   
  
To keep the sanctity of the experiment... and maybe even to preserve her own life... she would have to be subject to their torture.  
  
Hell.  
  
"C'mon, chica..." the young man said as strong hands grabbed her arms and twisted them up behind her back. "You know you want it."  
  
She kicked the man in the groin, as hard as she humanly could. He folded over, and somehow she managed to flip herself up and over the two who were holding her without looking too unreal. Unfortunately, she also managed to land flat on her butt.   
  
"Dammit... hold her!"   
  
She scrambled to her feet, kicking out in every direction she could, and she actually managed to run for a few feet before someone large and heavy tackled her from behind. Her skin scraped off against the pavement as she fell.  
  
"Uh-uh.. you're not going anywhere..."  
  
She started to scream.  
  
It didn't help.  
  
It went on... she didn't know how long. It couldn't have been more than fifteen minutes, but those few minutes were enough. They had her on the ground, and they were tugging at her spandex bike shorts. She closed her eyes, screamed, kicked, and tried not to think about what was going to happen. She tried not to break her cover, use the skills the Matrix had given her, and bring the Agents down on her head.  
  
But the Agents came anyway.  
  
At least one of them did. She heard the shouts before she could even see him, and it was a couple seconds before they made sense in her mind.   
  
"All of you, lie down on the ground with your hands behind your head."  
  
Smith.  
  
He was, she realized as she lay there and felt the pebbles and dirt pressing into her cheek, doing a damn good imitation of a human agent of some law enforcement order. She listened, not daring to move.  
  
"Federal Agent... Freeze!" she heard the words just before she heard the gunshot. Behind her something fell down, something large and heavy. There weren't any sounds of movement after the body hit the ground. She wondered where the bullet had gone. "The next one gets it in the head. Now get off her... slowly... and keep your hands where I can see them at all times."  
  
She hadn't heard that level of venom in his voice since she'd heard the salvaged recordings from the Neb.   
  
"Man, you can't just be coming in here and..."  
  
Bang.  
  
The bodies on top of her moved a lot quicker after the second shot. As with the first, she didn't hear any movement behind her. Slowly, very slowly, she stood up and pulled her clothing back on and around her, drawing herself to her feet with all the dignity she possessed.  
  
"Are you hurt?" He didn't look at her as he asked, didn't address her by name. Smart, she supposed.   
  
"I'm okay." She took a deep breath, steadied her voice. "I'm okay." When she finally managed to look up at him he was grabbing at her arm, putting her behind him. The gun was at arm's length pointed directly at one of the bandana-wrapped heads. Two bodies were on the ground, too still for life. Everyone was staring at Smith as though he held the key to all the answers. Which, she had to grant, he did.   
  
His earpiece was also in his ear.  
  
But not, it seemed, to communicate to the agents. The police were there within seconds, and took at face value Agent Smith's assertion that he was a member of the FBI who happened to stumble upon the attempted rape of one Solace, last name unknown. Yes, they were acquainted beyond today, it was their custom to meet in the park and have lunch, share coffee, play chess, or talk. He had become concerned when she did not appear around the usual time and started to walk through the park, wondering if she had perhaps been held up somewhere. No, he didn't know why the gang members would accost her. No, he hadn't had any foreknowledge, he just happened to be in the right place at the right time. They took her statement, allowed her to assert that she hadn't been raped (although it had been a near thing), didn't run a rape kit on her, and allowed her to leave the station.  
  
Smith was leaning on the car outside, arms folded across his chest. His earpiece was down again, but his sunglasses were on.   
  
"Come on... I'll take you home."  
  
Home. She actually froze for a second, trying to remember if she had arranged to have a home once she'd realized this experiment would be ongoing. Her eyes widened, and he took the expression for fear.   
  
"You're safe now..." he said, frowning. "Nothing is going to happen to you."  
  
"Yeah..." she shook her head. Of course, she'd arranged the apartment with Tank, why had she forgotten that? She'd had to field all kinds of potentially embarrassing questions. She should have remembered. "I know... it's just..." The shiver was unfeigned.  
  
Smith reached an arm out to her and pulled her in close to him as she approached, his hand on her shoulder. "Come on..." he said, more gently this time. Evolution at its best.   
  
She got into the car.  
  
"... where do you live?" he asked after they sat there for a long moment. They both had realized that she hadn't told him, and Solace grinned wryly.  
  
"Apartment building at the corner of Wood and 25th. Ironically, it's not too far."  
  
He nodded, started the car, and drove out. The verisimilitude of the Agent program evidently extended to their driving skills. Smith drove on in silence, and Solace drew her knees up to her chest over the course of the next ten minutes. She looked out the window at the passing buildings, wondering a little at the unreality of it all. Her senses told her it was real; the knowledge locked in her head told her otherwise. Strange, how things like that worked. And strange how all the falsehood in the world couldn't erase the baser impulses of street scum.   
  
"Are you sure you're all right?" Smith asked, glancing over at her longer than should have been humanly possible for the way he was driving. She let it go.  
  
"No. But for the purposes of the police questioning, yes, I was. I figured I'd wait till I got home to collapse into tears."  
  
"Ah."  
  
They reached the apartment building, into whose parking lot Solace directed Smith with almost automatic short words. She barely nodded to the doorman and had to fumble with her keys to open the door.   
  
"You are most definitely not all right."  
  
"I just said that in the car... didn't I just say that?" she leaned against the wall after locking the door behind them, closing her eyes "Oh god... I feel like I'm going to be sick."  
  
"Breathe..." she felt warm hands on his shoulder, lifted her own hands up to cover them. "Breathe."  
  
"Breathing. Got it."  
  
Minutes ticked by. "Here..." she finally managed to open her eyes (he had taken off his sunglasses at some point) and walk a straight line through the den. "Might as well sit down."  
  
They sat. Solace propped herself up against a corner and curled up further. Smith extended his legs, appearing to be more at ease than he should have been for his first time in her apartment. She looked him up and down, trying to be at least a little bit subtle about it. He watched her with more abstract concern than emotion.  
  
"Solace..." he murmured.  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"Your posture suggests that you are still afraid. Why?"  
  
"... I don't know."  
  
He reached out and put only the fingertips of one hand on her arm. "There's nothing to be afraid of, here."  
  
Deep breath. Control. Breathing. "I know."  
  
"Then why are you trembling?"  
  
She stretched her legs out. Their feet met, touched. It felt odd, and she tried to ignore it. "I don't know."  
  
Long silence. "Solace..."  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
Deep breath. He seemed to be considering something. She didn't know what; she hadn't been paying attention. She had been in a state of shock for the last half hour, the Matrix almost entirely driven from her mind. Smith's nonhuman status as an Agent seemed trivial now. The unreality of the world around them seemed irrelevant.   
  
"Solace..."  
  
Her train of thought had derailed again. Not good. "Yeah?"  
  
Deep sigh. "Come here."  
  
He stretched out his arms and pulled her in close. The absolute impossibility of the action broke through the shock, and she blinked for a second. "I thought you didn't like cute and cuddly."  
  
"I don't." His arms tightened around her. He was warm, had breath, had a heartbeat. The computers were certainly thorough. She closed her eyes. "But you seem to need some sort of comfort right now."  
  
"Oh..."   
  
He was right, though how a computer program recognized the need for... oh hell. Stop thinking about it. "Just re..." he stopped short of saying 'relax,' probably feeling her tense up as he started to say the words. The same words the gang bangers had said. "Sleep, Solace. You are safe now."  
  
"Not..." she yawned "A bad idea."  
  
Why was she relaxing so much in the presence... in the impossible embrace... of an Agent? She didn't understand, and in the face of the events of the day it didn't matter.   
  
"Sleep, Solace." His fingertips stroked her hair. The luxurious, soft hair that she had been so proud of when she had been alive... plugged in... whatever. Her eyes were starting to droop closed. She did feel safe. She felt protected. "I will watch over you." Almost inaudible, as though even he didn't want to know what he had just said.   
  
"Mm-hmm... I'll just rest here... for a minute."  
  
"Of course."  
  
She slept. 


	16. Day Twenty Eight

Solace woke up with a feeling of unreality, not knowing where she was. For one thing, she was on an actual bed, underneath actual covers... a pretty thick one, too. The window was open, and it was chilly outside... not too cold, but chilly. And there was someone else in the room with her.  
  
She wanted to sit up, wake up, and draw her gun. Only just in time did she remember that she couldn't. She was dressed... if that was the term... in one of the slips she kept around for sleeping purposes. The thought made her blush.  
  
"What.... What what what..." her mind stuttered, making her repeat the word. She shook her head slowly, trying to clear it. "What... where..." Okay, a different word. That was better. "What happened?"  
  
He must have been learning. He didn't say anything about the attack, just leaned forward in his chair till she could see him in the fading light of the moon. "You slept for two hours, and then I woke you and transferred you to the bed."  
  
Solace looked over at him, thinking about asking how she'd gotten into her nighttime clothing. She decided against it. "Thank you..." Her voice was barely in the audible range. She knew he'd hear her.   
  
There was a very long silence. Somewhere towards the middle of it Smith rolled the chair soundlessly over to her bedside and sat back down, not quite touching her, waiting for her to climb out of the bed. She didn't want to leave the warm and soft cushions. She really didn't want to get up, unplug, and face the real world.  
  
"Your supervisor... excuse me, your editor called. He wanted you to know that you could take the next ... couple of days off."  
  
Solace blinked, having trouble digesting that for a couple of seconds before she realized who her editor must have been. "Oh... right." This time she did slide to the edge of the bed and sit upright, feet on the floor. "I should get moving..."  
  
"You should rest, Solace."  
  
"I need to get back to work..." she stood up gingerly, feeling every muscle and joint creak and twitch.   
  
"You need to rest. There remains the possibility that you have a concussion..."  
  
"You thought I might have a concussion and you let me fall asleep??"   
  
"I was monitoring you. There was no danger..."  
  
"Smith, you can't always tell if there's no danger or not with a head wound... I might have had internal bleeding..."   
  
"You did not. We made sure."  
  
"We?"  
  
He looked uncomfortable. Probably because he didn't want to explain that the Agents and such had been monitoring her life functions "The doctors."  
  
She decided to put another face on the reason for his discomfort. "You were there, too."  
  
He nodded slowly. "Yes."  
  
She reached out and clasped his hand in hers, pressing tight with her fingers. "Thank you."  
  
His hands were just shy of sweaty. It struck her yet again that the machines had put in every last little detail when they constructed the Agent programs. "You are welcome."  
  
She tilted her head to one side. "Why is it that I was the one who was attacked, and yet you're the one who seems to need to talk about it?"  
  
"I am fine."  
  
Quieter, lower tones. "You don't look fine."  
  
"I am merely concerned for your safety."   
  
He was turning away. She darted over to stand in front of him. "I am safe. I'm here, in my house, with you. Nothing's going to happen to me."  
  
"Nothing should have happened to you in the park, yet it did."  
  
She shuddered. "I know."  
  
He took a deep breath. "I am... unused to being unable to prevent danger. It does not sit well with me when I find that I can't..."  
  
"You don't like being helpless."  
  
"Yes."  
  
Solace sighed. She could empathize with that; they had, after all, been in very similar situations. She had been unable to use her preternatural speed and strength because it would have brought Agents down on her head, never mind what it would have done to the relationship between her and Smith. He had been unable to use his powers for a similar reason, although she presumed he was less worried about alerting Agents to his presence than she was.   
  
"I know how it is..." she said after a minute. "I don't like feeling helpless either."  
  
"How do..." he paused, rephrased, turned away and started pacing down the length of her bedroom. "How do you deal with it?"  
  
Shrug. "I don't know. Everyone deals with circumstances in their own individual way." Weak smile. "Patterns and amalgamations and equations, remember? Tiny variations..."  
  
He nodded impatiently. "I know. I know."  
  
"Smith... you can't blame yourself for what happened. You were there in time, before anything irreversible..." she took a deep breath. She didn't want to say the r word. "Before they raped me. Thank you."  
  
"Barely in time."  
  
Bitterness and self-recrimination. Solace tried to tell herself that this was a computer program talking, albeit a remarkably well constructed computer program. He stood in the doorway, back turned to her. She stared at him from her vantage point by the bed, by the window.   
  
"I should have ..."  
  
"Should have what? Been there? Smith, you are not prescient. You couldn't have known what would have happened."  
  
He nodded, but didn't respond.  
  
"I'm glad you were there. If you hadn't been..." Scenes of rape, torture, stabbing, pain, murder flashed through her mind. She shuddered violently. "I don't know... what would have happened." Bile rose into the back of her throat.  
  
He turned around, expressionless. "I would recommend against thinking about it."  
  
"Yeah..." she wrapped her arms around herself.  
  
He stared at her. "Solace..."  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"I am sorry."  
  
The tears started to flow hot and thick down her cheeks. Something in that statement, all the more poignant because it had come from an Agent, a computer program, had broken something within her. "Me too..."  
  
His eyes narrowed. "Solace...?"  
  
It was her turn to face the wall, away from him. "Yeah?"  
  
"Are you all right?"  
  
"Yeah... I'm fine."  
  
"You don't sound fine..."  
  
She wiped her eyes. "I'll be all right."  
  
"You..." he sounded as though he were struggling with his words. "It was not your fault."  
  
"I know." Her voice was barely above a whisper.  
  
"Do you? Solace..." his hands came down on her shoulders, making her jump. "I'm sorry... I didn't mean to startle you."  
  
"It's okay."  
  
"Solace... from what I understand, many women who are put into the situation you were thrown into today blame themselves for what happens to them, rather than their attackers."  
  
"Yeah...."  
  
"I would ... like to know that you ... are not one of those women."  
  
She wasn't sure what he was trying to say. "I don't..." she paused. Honesty as the best policy. "I don't know... how I feel about it. I'm still trying to get over the fact that it happened at all... it shouldn't have happened. I just don't understand..." she started to cry again, and her shoulders started to shake. It shouldn't have happened, she should have been able to fend off every last ganger there... but for the Agents, and her need not to blow her cover. And now she was paying the price for it.  
  
Smith's hands flexed and tightened on her shoulders, and finally dropped. This didn't make any sense either, why she should feel so comfortable, so safe around her natural enemy.   
  
"I don't understand it myself...." She felt the breath rather than heard his sigh. "Why ... human beings have to be so destructive, it seems, to survive. What this imperative is to violence and aggression."  
  
"If we knew, we'd probably try to get rid of it..." she sighed. "Of course then we wouldn't be human... we might all just be passive jellyfish..."  
  
"Jellyfish do not hunt and kill each other."  
  
"Hamsters do..." the thought suddenly occurred to her. "Small rodents... even dogs. They eat..." her breath was starting to come in gasps. "They eat their young...."  
  
"I have no answers for you..."  
  
"I felt so.... Incompetent. Helpless...." She moaned the words, choked by her tears. "I hate feeling helpless. I still feel ... and I hate it. I hate it!"   
  
"You are far from helpless," he told her, carefully stroking the top of her head and letting her hair tangle itself around his hands. "You are one of the least helpless women I have ever met."  
  
"Really?"  
  
"Of course."  
  
It was some compliment, considering the women he usually took notice of were Resistance members. "Thank you."  
  
His hands fell back to his sides again. He clearly didn't know what to do, and she couldn't really blame him. She had never expected this when she had taken the assignment upon herself. Not in a thousand years. Not in a million. And she hadn't expected him to stay with her for as long as he had.... She didn't understand that part either. Why was he monitoring her? Granted, the Mainfraime, the AI had ordered him to ... to watch humans, to study how they worked. This was probably part of it. Had the Mainframe even set up the attack so that.... No Her mind shied away from the idea, and she turned away from Smith, heading in towards the kitchen.   
  
"Shouldn't you get some more sleep?" his voice called behind her.  
  
"If I sleep now I'll be up all night again. I just need to stay up till around eight in the evening, and then I'll be okay..." her voice was distant, even to her, and it wasn't just that she'd gone into the kitchen. He followed her, still expressionless.  
  
"Then what will you do?"  
  
"Well... it's almost dawn. I thought I'd make some orange juice, toast, or something, and watch the sun come up." Shaky, Sol. Very shaky. She swallowed. "Should you be getting back to work, or..."   
  
"I will return to work in a few hours. When I know that you are..."  
  
The glass slipped and crashed on the floor. "Dammit!"   
  
"... better."  
  
The shattering noise seemed to somehow echo the shattering in her mind. She didn't even notice the piece of glass sticking out of her finger. "I'm fine, Smith... I..." The tears started to flow again. "Shit."  
  
He grabbed her hand. His flesh was still warm... would he bleed if she cut him? She shook her head to banish the thoughts.   
  
"You are far from fine, Solace. You will be all right, but you need to allow yourself time to recover."  
  
She winced when he pulled the glass out. "Time...."  
  
"Do you keep a first aid kit..."  
  
"In the cabinet above the refrigerator."   
  
He reached up, grabbed it, and started to tape up her finger while she watched with emotions numbed over by too many shocks, too much thinking. "I told you that you are one of the least helpless women I know... but you are also one of the most stubborn."  
  
"... oh."  
  
"You must allow yourself time to heal. It is no discredit to you if you take a couple of days to rest and accept what has happened, and deal with the problem. There is no shame in ..."  
  
"... in what? Being a victim? I'm not a victim, Smith, I never have been." Sigh. More tears. "I never wanted to be."  
  
"I don't believe anyone would want to be a victim. And you aren't. You are a survivor."  
  
She sniffled. "I hadn't even thought of that."  
  
"You haven't taken much time to think." He was right. Damn the man... program. Why did he have to be right about matters of emotions? "Go... sit down. I will take care of the glass."  
  
She did. 


	17. Day Twenty Nine

Three hours found her sitting on her tiny balcony with a mostly empty glass of orange juice, a plate of crumbs, and the Agent opposite her at the table. The sun had risen and it was nice and warm in the barely post-dawn light. The prisms she'd had Tank put in her window were casting rainbows on them, even out here. She wondered how far the rainbows went.   
  
Movement beside her made her jump and look around. Smith was standing. "I should return to work. Will you be all right?"  
  
She finished off the glass of orange juice. "I think so..." Her voice was steady, and she hadn't burst into tears in the last hour and a half.   
  
He hesitated. "Should I stay?"  
  
Solace turned around and stared at him. "No... that's okay. Thank you for the offer, though, it's very... generous..."   
  
And confusing. She didn't understand why he'd done any of what he had over the last few days. The Agent, the computer program designed to entrap humans and keep them safe and secure in their pod prisons, was being more sympathetic and understanding than at least one of her crewmates would have been. She shuddered to think of what Dis would have said in response to the attack. And yet Smith, who had evidenced nothing but hatred for the humans until she had come along in the guise of a young hippie reporter... sympathy. Empathy. It didn't make any sense. Or rather, it made a kind of sense that was worrying.  
  
Her only comfort was that he seemed to be just as uncomfortable with his actions as she was. "It is no more than ..." he started to say, and then trailed off. "It's all right."   
  
"No, really..." she stood up and went over to him, touching his Armani-clad shoulder. "You've been wonderfully kind. Thank you."  
  
He scowled. "You are welcome."  
  
"You don't sound happy."  
  
"I am fine."  
  
The man was infuriating. "You don't sound fine."  
  
"I am... unaccustomed to being excessively thanked."  
  
She blinked. "I wasn't aware that I was being excessive."  
  
His shoulders tightened, and then he seemed to relax a little bit and kept walking towards the door. "Don't worry about it."  
  
"What's that supposed to mean?"  
  
This time he turned around. "What I said... don't worry about it."  
  
He was clearly unaccustomed both to experiencing or demonstrating emotions and to having his orders questioned or disobeyed. "Smith, what the hell is going on with you?"  
  
"Nothing is going on with me. I am fine."  
  
"You don't sound fine."  
  
"Nevertheless..."   
  
On any other day she would have had the patience and sense to just let it go. She was, after all, unplugged. She knew better than to assume an Agent would react like a human. But that was exactly the problem, wasn't it? Sometimes he reacted like a human, and sometimes he reacted like an Agent, and her ability to predict which way he would swing was decreasing rapidly. Right now she couldn't predict her way out of a wet paper bag.   
  
The hell with it. "Fine." She stalked back out to the balcony.  
  
"What?" His voice was snappish, a human reaction.  
  
"Nothing. You're uncomfortable with babysitting me, fine, go back to work."  
  
"Babysitting you?!"  
  
"Sure. That's what you feel like you've been doing for the past twenty four hours, isn't it?"  
  
"I never thought..."  
  
"Bite your tongue. You did."  
  
"I did not. You were injured and you needed care."  
  
"So now I'm an invalid...? Or did you just want to play doctor?"  
  
They were glaring at each other by now, and she knew there was no excuse for what she'd just said. Of all things, she just wanted to get a reaction out of him, more human reactions than electronic. But...  
  
"I'm sorry..." she sighed and looked away first. "I shouldn't have said that."  
  
"No..." Her head jerked up at the hatred in his voice. This must have been what Morpheus heard. "You shouldn't."  
  
"Dammit, Smith..."  
  
"What?" he spun around, glaring, and she took a step backwards.   
  
"You didn't have to stick around, so don't blame me for whatever sociopathic weakness you think you have."  
  
"I have no weaknesses."  
  
"Like hell you don't!" It was true both of Smith as an Agent and Smith as she was supposed to see him, a human being. "We all have weaknesses."  
  
"Not me."   
  
"Bullshit."  
  
His face contorted. He was really pissed off now. "You are the weak one here..."  
  
"Then why are you so angry, and me so calm?"  
  
He started to retort, stopped, and just stared daggers at her. It hurt more than she had expected. "I am in perfect control."   
  
His voice certainly sounded more controlled than hers was going to. She took a deep breath. "Fine. Then go."  
  
"All right."  
  
He didn't move.  
  
"Shouldn't you be going?"  
  
"Most likely."  
  
He still didn't move.  
  
"Go, already..." she turned around, arms around her waist again.   
  
"Are you sure you're all right?"   
  
"What the hell do you care."  
  
She heard his exasperated sigh. "I don't." She thought she heard him say, I shouldn't. There was another very long silence.   
  
"Smith...just go. Please."  
  
"I will go when I am certain that you're recovered enough from the attack to function on your own..."  
  
It was a comment that was too much Agent and too much human, and she wasn't up to dealing with the confusion right now. "Then let me put it another way. Get. Out."  
  
"Solace, I do not think you are in a position right now to..."  
  
"Get out!"   
  
Smith ducked the seat cushion that came flying at his head with almost preternatural ease. "Solace, I think you need to..."  
  
"Get! Out!" This time it was a book.  
  
"Solace." He was standing in front of her faster than she could blink, grabbing her wrists. "Do not throw anything else at me."  
  
"Get out of my apartment and I won't."  
  
"I will not. You need rest, time to relax, and to calm yourself."  
  
"How the hell could you possibly know what I need."  
  
"I know that you are in a distressed state of mind right now." He released her, and she stepped back several paces. "You are hurt, and confused, and at the moment your emotions are most likely running the gamut right now." He waited for her to respond, but she was silent. "You need to ... take it easy."  
  
Solace scowled, wondering how long he had been searching in the database of human phrases before he had found that one. "And you need to go back to work."  
  
He nodded. "I do. If you will promise to relax and do no work for the rest of the day. I will return in the evening. To check up on you."  
  
She took a very deep breath and let it out very, very slowly. "All right."  
  
He waited.  
  
"All right! Fine. I promise."  
  
He didn't so much turn and walk out as back up nearly to the door and then walk out. "I will return in the evening..." he said, and left.  
  
She went over to the couch and sat down. Thoughts were running through her head at paces that would have made even the Agents blink. What the hell was Smith doing? Had the experiment worked? Was he humanizing? Or was it all some game, some test to see what kind of emotions humans would offer to the Agents if they presented themselves as sources of reassurance, of comfort? It would make sense, given that even FBI and CIA Agents were supposed to be protective figures in people's minds.   
  
Was that what she was to Smith? A lab rat, a mouse to be run through a maze to see which way it twitched? And why did the thought that she might be just as much a subject of observation as he was hurt her so much? Why did she care what he thought? What did it matter? He was just an Agent, a collection of pixels, bytes, pieces of information and data. It did not add up to enough of anything to form a connection to, no matter how much she tried to humanize him to both herself and the Mainframe.  
  
But... God, why did it hurt so much? And why was she so afraid? Maybe what she really needed was a professional rape counselor... but she couldn't go to anyone plugged in. They just wouldn't understand... did Zion have professional rape counselors? Surely they did. Any large habitation of humans would have rapes, and they would almost have to have someone to deal with them. Not that she had been raped, of course, it hadn't gotten that far. Thanks to Smith. Why had he rescued her, even? And now she was back to that again.  
  
Too much. It was all too much. She reached into a desk drawer and pulled out a cell phone.   
  
"Operator." Tank's voice was so welcome on the other end.   
  
"Hey Tank... it's me."  
  
"Hey, Sol. You've been in there a long time, I saw you two had some kind of argument. Are you okay?"   
  
"I'm okay... well, mostly. I only have a few hours outside, he's going to meet me in the evening..."  
  
"Two seconds."  
  
He hung up. She walked over to the phone in her bedroom, which began to ring. White polished plastic, a recreation of the old-style handset telephones. She stared at it for a second before she picked it up, jacked out.   
  
The real world was so gray, gray and green and cold. She shivered as Tank pulled the connector out of her. "Hey there, Sleeping Beauty. Everything go okay?"  
  
"Yeah..." She stood up slowly. "I should go ... exercise... make sure my muscles don't go completely to pot with a ll the time I've been spending under, lately." It was a nervous laugh, but it was still a laugh. Tank didn't look convinced.  
  
"I know you're not supposed to talk about it, but... well, you want to talk about what happened?"  
  
"No... thanks, Tank. Really. But ... I'm fine." She smiled and touched his arm, reassuring. He really was a sweetheart, and she always felt safe going under with him at the controls. "Thanks for keeping an eye on me."  
  
"No charge..." He watched her as she disappeared around the corner and down the hatch. 


	18. Day Thirty

Punching the bag always made her feel better. Pull-ups, sit-ups, yoga. Working out made her feel as though she was doing something, keeping her own physical fitness if nothing else. And right now she really needed to hit something.  
  
Solace had no idea why she was reacting this badly. Nothing had happened, really... she had been injured but she was okay. She hadn't even been raped... she wondered what it would have looked like outside the Matrix if that had happened.   
  
No... don't think about that. Don't even think about that.  
  
Why had Smith come along when he had? Did it really matter? It did, because on some deep and intrinsic level she wondered if he had staged the whole thing just to see her reaction. He'd admitted early on in their bizarre sort-of friendship that he'd been ordered into it, a test of human emotions and reactions. It was entirely possible that the machines had set the whole thing up just to see what would happen. She hoped it wasn't the case, but she had to admit the possibility. Or did she? Was she just being paranoid?   
  
Almost time to go back into the Matrix again. Solace did a couple more pullups on the pipe above her head and dropped to the floor. She had time for a couple quick stretches.  
  
It was probably just a random attack. Certainly humanity didn't need any outside help or interference in being malicious or vicious or a pain in the ass... it could accomplish that all on its own. She still got the shivers, just a little, when she thought of it. So close, too close, it had been way too close. If I'd been in my Resistance outfit I'd've kicked your collective buttocks, she thought vengefully, then winced as she stretched her back a little more than perhaps was wise. If she'd been in her guise as a Resistance fighter they probably wouldn't have approached her. If she'd been in her guise as a Resistance fighter she wouldn't have been in the park. If, if, if. If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.   
  
'Well fuck them, and fuck her, and fuck him, and fuck you For not having the strength in your heart to pull through.' Lyrics from a popular song echoed through her mind. They felt appropriate. But she couldn't indulge that sort of feeling, not now. Time to get back on the horse. Time to jack in again.  
  
She went up to the control room and nodded a wordless greeting to Tank, who only stared at her with concern in his eyes. They'd done this so often that it was becoming routine, second nature. She'd jack in, Tank would monitor her for a little while and then run off to do things around the ship, checking in on her every so often. He'd probably check up on her a little more today. Hell, who was she kidding. A lot more.  
  
It had become so routine that it wasn't even jarring anymore when she was loaded into the Matrix. Lying on her bed, the sky outside had just settled into that purple shade of dusk, and the phone was ringing. She picked it up automatically. "Yeah."  
  
"Okay." Tank's voice echoed back, and he hung up.  
  
Solace folded her arms around herself and waited.   
  
It was actually an hour and a half before Smith showed up, looking oddly rumpled and out of sorts. She wanted to phone up Tank and ask if anyone in the Resistance had been in the area lately. The temptation was easily resisted.   
  
"Hey..." she said quietly as he walked in, no ceremony, no change in facial expression. No words. Tore off his sunglasses and yanked out his earpiece. "Long day?"  
  
He turned around in the middle of her living room as though he'd just noticed she was there. "Something like that."  
  
She nodded, slow and careful. "Yeah. Me too. Um... you want some coffee?"  
  
Pause. She could tell he was searching for the appropriate response, and wondered if it would have been as obvious to someone who didn't know about the existence of the Matrix. "No... thank you. I d... The last thing I need at the moment is another dose of caffeine." It sounded stilted, but it made her smile anyway. He had to have cribbed that line from somewhere.  
  
"Juice? Water, tea... I'd offer you alcohol but I'm afraid that if I do I'll have some myself, and then if I start drinking I wouldn't be able to stop, and while that's never really been a problem for me I don't want to start now because they say it's bad to drink when you're depressed..." Babble. Babel? "Sorry."  
  
He seemed to actually see her now, and sat down slowly on her recliner chair. "How have you been?" he asked, more quietly than before.  
  
"I've had better days." Just as quiet, just as calm as he was. She could do this. "Much better days, in fact. Actually, I can't think of many days that have been worse."  
  
"It will pass."  
  
"Everything does."  
  
If he'd been human he would have looked disturbed. Something in her tone suggested suicide, or self-mutilation at the very least. Smith, being a program, had to analyze her words and tone for the likeliest conclusion. And he didn't betray any emotion, either. "I would recommend against that kind of attitude. It does not do you any good."  
  
Weak smile, more of a twitch of the lips than anything. "Well, thank you for your overwhelming concern." Conveniently ignoring that the fact that he was here at all did show overwhelming concern... for a computer program.  
  
He shrugged, unwilling to respond to the challenge or unable to see the belligerence. "I am not exactly used to giving advice in this sort of situation."  
  
"Well, that makes two of us, I guess."  
  
"I thought this sort of thing was supposed to happen often."  
  
"What, the one-in-four statistic? It's sort of true, one out of every four women is or will be raped in her lifetime. But only ... I think, 9 percent of rapes are actually reported. Besides, I wasn't even..."  
  
"That does not change your feelings of helplessness, anger, and fear."  
  
She scowled at him. Why did he have to be so damn matter-of-fact? If this was how he pretended to have emotions and feelings, no wonder he wasn't doing a good job. "No, I guess it doesn't."  
  
This time he got the hint. He looked at her... really looked, now... and something in his face almost seemed to soften. "Did I do something..."  
  
"You know..." the words were falling over themselves to get out of her mouth before her brain could put a halt on them. "How do I know the whole thing wasn't a set up? You said from the very beginning that this whole thing was an experiment, that your superiors wanted you to get better at empathizing with people. For all I know you guys could have staged the whole thing, shake me up so you can waltz in, pat me on the shoulder, there there, it's all right. Wouldn't be the first time an agency's pulled that kind of shit. And would it really matter, in the grand scheme of things? Does it really matter that one hippie girl gets her ass kicked until the savior in black, the g-man, comes in to rescue her? It doesn't, does ..." She trailed off.  
  
Smith's jaw was clenched so tight she was sure she could hear his teeth grinding. His blue eyes were flashing... which was strange and striking in an Agent. What... no, which part of what she'd said had gotten to him so bad?  
  
"You think that I would be involved in that?" The soft tones of his voice made the question even more frightening.  
  
"I don't know what to think. You're the last person I ever expected to come jumping in..."  
  
"And because of that you suspect me of having orchestrated..."  
  
"I don't know."  
  
"Really."  
  
She sat down on the couch and dropped her head into her hands, feeling defeated and worn. "I don't know what to think anymore. I feel scared all the time and I don't know why. It feels like all the joy I had was ... somehow irresponsible, foolish."  
  
"And you blame me for that."  
  
Anger reared its head. "Goddammit, Smith, can you stop thinking about yourself for just one minute?"  
  
"Why? You don't seem to feel you need to."  
  
She opened her mouth to say something biting, stopped. Reconsidered. "It's hard to think after you've nearly been raped and/or had your skull crushed against the pavement."  
  
"And how do you think I feel," there was the barest hesitation between the words 'I' and 'feel' "hearing you accuse me of having something to do with that?"  
  
You can't feel, she wanted to say. You're a machine. But she wasn't sure that was true anymore. She looked away.  
  
Smith rose to his feet, putting his sunglasses back on again. If she'd been thinking she would have asked why he was doing that, as it was night outside. She didn't remember that she wasn't supposed to know what he was. "I will return when you are ready to talk," he said, in icy tones that would have impressed her had she not felt so weak at that moment. The door slammed like a shot. Half an hour later she remembered to lock it behind him.  
  
"Damn..." she murmured, pounding her fist against her thigh. "Damn, damn damn." 


	19. Day Thirty One

"You're insane, Solace. You're absolutely insane." The words came fast and thick in between heavy breaths as she pounded down the stairs, not bothering to wait for an elevator. Naturally, it was raining outside. Only dramatically appropriate. She could only hope that he'd had the foresight to stick around and walk out normally, instead of disappearing back into the Matrix.   
  
Why did she even care? It wasn't as though she'd hurt his feelings... feeling... it wasn't as though he had feelings to hurt. Then why did she feel so guilty?  
  
Rain pounded down on her... and she was still in her pajamas. She looked around, back and forth, and finally spotted him across the street.   
  
"Smith!"  
  
Even yelling at the top of her lungs she couldn't hear herself over the water. He did, though. Preternatural Agent hearing, she supposed. He turned around and mouthed crossly at her, "What?"  
  
"You're right!"  
  
"What??"  
  
This wasn't doing a goddamn thing. "Hang on!"  
  
Normally she was adept at dodging cars. Even in the rain she had managed (she was sure) to dazzle Smith with her display of anti-vehicular acrobatics. Today... she didn't know what it was. Maybe it was the strange sleep schedule, the rain, the lingering distress from the attack and the fight and just the confusion of it all. The car slammed into her, and if it had been going five miles faster or if she'd been hit from a different angle, she probably would have been dead faster than you could say 'Operator'  
  
"Oh my god!"  
  
She was lying on her back in the grass... the trees above didn't match the ones in the yard around her apartment... she must be across the street. Funny, she didn't remember hitting the ground.  
  
"Miss.... Are you all right?"  
  
"Solace..."  
  
"Did somebody call an ambulance?"  
  
Hospitals... twice in one week. It was a record for her, in or out of the Matrix. "I'm okay..." she struggled to sit up, then struggled against the rising urge to vomit. "I'm okay."  
  
"You are most definitely not okay."  
  
A weak smile. His tone was more acerbic than usual; he must be worried. "I'll be okay, is that better?"  
  
"Oh my god..."  
  
"Miss..."  
  
"Solace. Her name is Solace..."  
  
"Tremain..." It left her lips before she realized that giving Smith her real last name might not be a good idea. "Solace Tremain."  
  
"Miss Tremain..."  
  
"Do you know where you are?"  
  
"I'm lying..." she finished sitting up. She managed not to throw up in someone's (probably Smith's, the way her luck was going) lap. It was good. "I'm sitting in the grass of someone's lawn, opposite my apartment. It's the ... Eigth of April. The President of the United States is George Bush Junior... unfortunately... and you're holding up three fingers, Smith, thanks."  
  
The press of people withered under the Agent's glare. "You could still have internal bleeding," he continued. "You should go to the hospital."  
  
The ambulance was already pulling up. "Do you... do you want my insurance carrier..." it finally registered that a rather fluttery young man was trying to talk to her, probably the man who had hit her.   
  
"I'll be okay... I have a trust fund that'll cover it... thanks... besides, I don't need to go to the hospital." The last comment was directed at Smith, who was picking her up and bodily carrying her to the ambulance. She wanted to remind him to look burdened, strained, as though she actually weighed something. She kept her mouth shut.  
  
"You need at least to be assessed by the paramedics," he insisted.  
  
"If they say I don't have any internal damage, then can I go home?"  
  
"If you must."  
  
He set her down gently onto the back of the ambulance, where they proceeded to poke her, shine lights in her eyes, ask her if it hurt, poke her some more, run their fingers through her blood-matted hair (she hadn't noticed that cut before), ask if that hurt, and interrogate her for every symptom she could think of and a few more she hadn't known existed. She suffered through it all with eyerolls and half-hearted glares at Smith. The Agent stood there impassively, arms folded, sunglasses off. It turned into a staring contest that the paramedics had to break up.  
  
"Miss!"  
  
She broke contact first, recognizing the futility of trying to stare down an Agent. "What?"  
  
"You can go. Provided you don't go to sleep for at least eight hours, and have someone wake you up every two hours for sixteen hours after that." The medic looked at Smith as he said it.  
  
"I will make sure she goes to a hospital if there is a complication."  
  
The medic nodded. "I'd like her to report to a hospital sometime within the next thirty-six hours for a follow-up."  
  
Smith nodded back. "It will be done."  
  
"Don't I get a say in this?"  
  
"No."   
  
Solace grumbled. "In stereo, yet."  
  
Smith's hand on her shoulder was both comforting and intimidating, and she wasn't sure which feeling was stronger. "Are there any other precautions?"  
  
The paramedic sighed. "That cut should probably be stitched up, but we can do that here ... if you can hold her down for a couple minutes..."  
  
"Hey!"  
  
"Of course." His other hand clamped down on her shoulder.  
  
"I can talk and think for myself, you know," she muttered up at him as he waited impassively for the paramedic to return with a suture kit.  
  
"Apparently not well enough when it comes to your personal health and well-being."  
  
Solace grumbled.  
  
"What was that?"  
  
"I said, grumble grumble."  
  
"You did not."  
  
"You didn't hear me, how would you know what I said?" Actually he would, and she'd called him a fairly nasty name, but she also had the feeling he knew she didn't mean it.   
  
"Be quiet or I will tell them to perform any procedures they need to without anesthetic."   
  
"Ouch."  
  
They were both silent as the paramedic came over and stitched up the cut on her forehead. The hands on her shoulders relaxed as soon as needle touched skin, and towards the end she actually thought she felt him absently massaging her shoulders. Surely not.  
  
"Remember what I told you about staying awake, young lady..."   
  
"I will. And if I don't, I'll be reminded." She rolled her eyes up at Smith, who nodded curt thanks to the paramedic.   
  
"You'll look after her?" the man asked Smith with an attitude that indicated he didn't trust her to look after herself.  
  
"Of course."  
  
"Good." The paramedic closed up the ambulance and left.   
  
The police were comparatively brief, for which Solace was very grateful. She was already starting to feel dizzy and regret her refusal to take a trip to the hospital, however brief it might have been. But she couldn't risk any sort of records that the hospital might create, and she was already in the system enough. She told the officer that it was her own damn fault, there wouldn't be any charges, and finally got the whole crowd to go away.  
  
Everyone, that is, except Agent Smith.  
  
He stood in the slackening rain as she stood in the doorway, dripping wet, watching each other. "Well?" he said finally. "What is it that you had to tell me that was so important you had to..."  
  
"Risk becoming a street pizza?" She leaned her head back against the door and sighed. "I wanted to say I'm sorry. You're right. I was out of line earlier, I was upset and I shouldn't have said what I did. I'm sorry."  
  
He folded his arms across his chest, possibly his favorite position, and said nothing.  
  
Solace shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. "So... you wanna come in?"  
  
Nod.  
  
She opened the door, nodded to the doorman (who looked startled) and trudged up the stairs. After the second time she had nearly fallen down the stairs Smith grabbed her forcibly by the arm and dragged her to the elevator. Thankfully, he didn't throw her into it. In fact, he seemed to be supporting her more than anything. He practically marched her to her door, though.  
  
"I'll be okay..." she grumped, leaning a hand against the doorframe.   
  
"You nearly fell twice, and you were walking unsteadily the whole way down the hall. You are far from all right. If you will not rest of your own accord I will tie you to a chair."  
  
She finally got the door open. "Why, Smith, anyone would think you were concerned..."  
  
"You were hit by a car."  
  
"Pshaw. I got away all right."  
  
"You could have internal bleeding. Is that not what you said the last time?"  
  
"Point." She swayed in the middle of her living room.  
  
"Solace..."  
  
"I'm sitting, I'm sitting." Actually she was sprawling, on the couch, head lolled back and eyes half closed. She listened to Smith wander about the apartment, clink ice into a glass. A few minutes later she felt something cold and wet underneath her lips.   
  
"Drink..."  
  
"I know what to do..." His arm slid between her back and the couch, propping her up. She sat forward as far as she could without getting unnecessarily dizzy and drank. "Fruit juice."  
  
"It was the healthiest thing in your refrigerator... and the most likely to stay down."  
  
She nodded, winced, and took another sip. "Good choice."  
  
"Thank you."  
  
His sleeve had to be getting soaked. She could feel the warmth of his arm, his hand, even the texture of his suit jacket through the fabric of her pajama top, rendered almost paper thin from the rain. Once she remembered that it had been absolutely freezing out there she started to shiver... and the movement made her nauseous. "Smith..." her voice was quavering, unsteady.   
  
"Hold it..." he moved just barely faster than should have been possible for a human. When the juice finally came back up it landed in a plastic bucket. He held it under her mouth with one hand, his other arm around her shaking shoulders.  
  
"Thanks..." she said weakly, when she could say anything again.  
  
"Are you sure you are all right?"  
  
She laughed, winced as the taste of bile hit her mouth again. "Weren't you just telling me a few minutes ago how injured I was..."  
  
"Not physically."  
  
She blinked at him. Was he evolving so far that he was compensating for her emotions, acknowledge them, allow for them... "Why?"  
  
"You ran into traffic with something less than your usual dexterity."  
  
"Well, it was raining, and..." she paused. The full meaning of what he was implying sank in. "You think I was trying to kill myself."  
  
He didn't actually look at her as he replied. "It was a possibility."  
  
She took a deep breath. Was that really what she had been trying to do? It would have worked in the Matrix and out. No. Couldn't have been. "Silly Agent Man..." she said finally, smiling just a little bit. "Banish such thoughts from your mind. No, I was just being stupid. As usual."  
  
"You are hardly usually stupid..." It sounded almost automatic. Her smile broadened.  
  
"Thanks."  
  
There was a pause, and then he took the bucket away and poured her a glass of water. She felt something ripple in the Matrix and watched as a bird pecked her window twice... he had probably just erased the vomit out of existence. She set the juice down on the coffee table and accepted the water he brought with relief. It washed the taste of vomit out of her mouth, even if it did wash it back down her throat.   
  
"Are you still feeling nauseous, dizzy?"  
  
She nodded, more slowly this time. "A little. I think it's going away... in very small increments." Solace reached over the table. "The juice is helping, though. Thank you."  
  
It was strange. She hadn't noticed the calm of his eyes... or had she... until she was sitting across from him, forced by injury and exhaustion into staying still. The absolute blueness... not glowing or bright, but faded like a set of comfortable old jeans. Eyes a girl could grow used to, comfortable with. Lips that were practically made for kissing. She didn't notice she'd been leaning forward until they could practically taste each other's breath... and then she pulled back. Vomit couldn't smell good at that close range.   
  
"Whoa..." the sudden movement made her head spin. "Okay. Right. No abrupt movements, no head jarring... and no head explodie. I can live with this."  
  
The moment had passed. She was too tired, too emotionally drained to sustain it, although the desperate and very nearly painful urge to kiss him still lingered on her mouth. He seemed to sense it as well, and leaned back further than he had been before.   
  
"Do you think you can keep the juice down this time?"  
  
She leaned back against the cushions... better the cushions than his arm or his chest... the heartbeat from a heart that wasn't really there. "I think so... just keep me propped up and keep me from going to sleep and I should be good to go."  
  
He handed her the glass, and she sipped the juice, forcing her eyes open. "Would Hegelian philosophy suit to keep your mind occupied and awake?"  
  
Solace blinked. "Hegelian philosophy?"  
  
"I can procure a hammer, if you would prefer."  
  
It took her a second, but eventually she was laughing, albeit carefully. "No... Hegelian philosophy will do just fine."  
  
He smiled.  
  
She stared.  
  
It was a smile. A real, almost entirely heartfelt smile. It even might have reached his eyes, had it gone on long enough. But it had disappeared back into his usual blankness almost before she could register it, leaving her with the impression that she had imagined the whole thing.  
  
"Thesis... antithesis... synthesis..." she murmured.  
  
"Exactly."  
  
The conversation moved on, and he never did explain the comment. 


	20. Trinity

Neo paced up and down the narrow hallway of the Nebuchadnezzer, Solace's words weighing on his mind like a lead block. She'd sworn him to secrecy, which was probably the worst part about it. He wanted to talk to someone, anyone, just to make sure that he'd told her the right thing. Just to make sure that he was doing the right thing and shouldn't call down the Elders on her to end whatever experiment she was running and drag her back to Zion. Which, actually, wasn't such a bad idea. She looked strung out and worn out, as though she needed a vacation. Maybe a rest from the Matrix wasn't such a bad idea.   
  
Except that it was probably the separation from the Agent that was killing her... and Neo shook his head, wincing at the very idea. In love! With an Agent!! It was enough to make him think in capital letters and more exclamation points than was safe.  
  
"You're going to wear a hole in the deck," Trinity remarked as he passed her for the umpteenth time.  
  
"Just thinking..."  
  
"About what? You've been pacing for the last half hour."  
  
Neo sighed, stopped, and sat down opposite Trinity. "That's the problem. I told ... the person I wouldn't tell anyone. It's sort of an ... embarrassing problem, I guess."  
  
Trinity frowned. This was something new. "Embarrassing?  
  
"I don't think it's dangerous... but it is kind of frustrating... for the person." Neo stumbled around the edges of the details. He wanted to talk to Trinity, but...   
  
"Neo, what's going on?"  
  
"Nothing to worry about..." I think, he added mentally.   
  
"But it's obviously worrying you."  
  
He tried to laugh it away. "Not because of anything dangerous. I'm just worried about her, that's all..." Neo winced. He hadn't meant that one to slip out.  
  
"Her... Solace? Because she didn't come down to dinner the other night."  
  
Neo nodded miserably. "She told me what was going on... with her. It's complicated..." he chuckled wryly, amusement he didn't exactly feel. "She's managed to do the impossible, though. I think. She thinks... we're not sure."  
  
Trinity watched him flounder for words and finally concluded that it was some sort of female problem that Neo didn't know how to describe. It wouldn't be the first time. For all that he was The One (or at least, for all intents and purposes) he was still a human being. And an adorably clueless one at that. "Do you want me to talk to her?"  
  
Neo looked up at her. His expression was not relieved in the slightest. Maybe it wasn't some obscure female thing. "If you think you can help... please. I don't know if there is an answer to this one, though."  
  
Trinity nodded slowly, wondering what she'd gotten herself into.   
  
"She's in her room..." Neo called as the woman climbed down the hatchway to the crew quarters. It wasn't very hard to guess. Solace had been in her room a lot lately.  
  
"Solace..."  
  
"Trinity."  
  
Trinity paused. That voice was definitely strained. "May I come in?"  
  
Long pause. "Sure."  
  
Trinity walked in. Solace was lying curled up on the bed, fetal, arms wrapped around her pillow like a lover. The older woman took a deep breath. This was going to be more difficult than she'd thought.   
  
"So, I hear you've done the impossible?"  
  
Solace sat up instantly, eyes flashing. "Neo told you..."  
  
"No," Trinity held up her hands hastily. "No, he didn't tell me anything except that he was worried about you and that you'd done something impossible. He didn't say what that something was."  
  
"Oh..." she slumped back on the bed, back into her attitude of hopelessness.  
  
"Solace, what's going on? You've been listless and depressed ever since you ended that experiment of yours... the one you still won't talk to anyone about." As though Solace could or would forget, but still.  
  
The younger woman sighed and leaned against a wall. She seemed to be considering her options, and Trinity hoped she would consider telling her what was going on. But then, when Solace finally did tell her, she almost wished she hadn't asked.  
  
"I'm in love with an Agent."  
  
Beat.  
  
"You're what?"  
  
"You heard me."  
  
Trinity had to sit down before her knees gave way. The revelation was not only unexpected, it was shocking. Neo had been right; she had done the impossible. Well, not entirely. It was possible, if improbable, that a human Resistance member would fall in love with an Agent. Improbable, hell, the idea was unthinkable. Except, it seemed, to Solace. She had thought it. She had done it. But the impossible...  
  
"And what does this Agent think about this?"  
  
It was barely a whisper. "He doesn't know."  
  
"Are you sure?"  
  
Pause. "No."  
  
Trinity expelled a deep breath and tried to focus her thoughts. It was still difficult to... "How do you think he feels?" She had to fight just to get the words out. Logic and common sense almost wouldn't let her say it. Solace didn't answer for a few minutes, and Trinity couldn't blame her.  
  
"He .. I don't know. He hasn't said anything. He kissed me... once..."  
  
"Before or after he found out you were Resistance?"  
  
"Before. He only found out a couple days before I ended... the experiment." Solace took a huge, shuddering breath.   
  
"And before that?"  
  
"I don't know. It was just the one kiss."  
  
It was quiet for a minute. Trinity couldn't help it, couldn't look away, and was worried about the answer. "But that's not it, is it?"  
  
"No..." Solace was quiet so long that Trinity thought she wasn't going to explain. Finally she did. "It started out benign enough. I talked. I pushed buttons, as many as I could without being abrasive or tetchy. I tried to make him think... and more than that, to make him react instinctively, to feel. It ... I wasn't sure, at first. I know I was making him think... and, really, it was the same things I was wondering. What, really, is the difference between us and them. If they're designed by us, then how can they be anything but like us? Do they really have the capacity to evolve that far? Because it sure doesn't look like it."  
  
Trinity blinked. She knew Morpheus had to know about this... he'd signed off on the project, after all. But she'd had no idea that it stemmed from what nearly amounted to heresy. And yet, what Solace was saying made sense.  
  
"We met in the park... well, the kind-of park. Virtual park. Whatever... he thought I was a free-thinking reporter, and I pretended to assume he was part of a government agency. We talked about a lot of stuff... I started to make friends even in the Matrix. After a while I even introduced him to some of them. And then... I don't know what happened. A bunch of guys jumped me in the park one day... and if he hadn't been there I'd probably be dead now. He saved my life... the next few days, though. It was just... weird."  
  
Trinity swallowed, licked her lips, tried to unstick her throat so she could speak. Tried to wrap her mind around the concept. "What happened?"  
  
"We had a fight. A big one. Actually, more like a lot of fights strung together. I was nervous, scared, and ... well, you know what I'm like when I get scared." They exchanged wry grins. "He didn't know what to do with me. But for the first time, it seemed like he was ... experiencing emotions. I mean, he already was... look at how much he hates the humans. But it seemed like he was feeling something else, like he was worrying about me. After that it was a lot easier... things just progressed, I guess.   
  
I think he started to look forward to our walks in the park... and we started to go other places. The zoo, the botanical gardens. Museums. One night I took him to the park, where a bunch of us were hanging out, burning fires in trashcans, dancing around, playing instruments. He seemed like he was actually relaxing. It was unbelievable. And... I don't know. It seemed like we could spend hours together, just talking..."  
  
Solace trailed off, and Trinity shivered. And it wasn't because of the usual low temperatures of the Neb. The look in the younger woman's eyes was a lot like the look in Trinity's eyes when she'd first hooked up with Neo... only less bitter, less jaded. The Agent, she supposed, was jaded enough for both of them. Assuming he had enough of an individualistic personality to be jaded. The only one she had encountered like that was Smith. And Neo had killed him... if an Agent could be killed. But did Solace actually think something was going to happen? Did she actually think this could work?  
  
"Solace... what are you planning to do about it?"  
  
Mis-matched eyes blinked at her as though she'd been speaking a foreign language. "Do about it? What can I do about it?"  
  
"I don't know," Trinity admitted. "But there has to be something. Sol, you haven't come out of your room in two weeks except to take your duties and eat. And we have to drag you to the single cell..."  
  
They laughed. Solace made a face. "It's single cell. What do you expect? It has the consistency of snot and the taste of damp cardboard."  
  
"I think damp cardboard tastes better." Trinity laughed. "Hey, at least you're making jokes."  
  
Solace lay back again. "I'm not as bad as it seems. Really. I just... can you imagine talking about this to anyone? Neo knows... how's he taking it, anyway?"  
  
"He's confused. I am too, honestly. But he's taking it pretty good. He's worried about you."  
  
Solace looked a little ashamed. "He found me at a bad point... it's gotten better since then. And it's not really something I can talk to anyone about except Morpheus... and now you two, I guess... but can you really see going to Morpheus with that sort of problem?"  
  
Trinity could, and had. But Solace, who didn't know Morpheus as well, probably wouldn't think so. "Yeah... I see your point."  
  
A couple tears began to trickle their way down her face. Solace wasn't as composed as she wanted Trinity to think. "Besides. I miss him."  
  
Miss an Agent. The only time Trinity had ever heard those words before had been when they were talking about with bullets. "But you're out of the Matrix. You're unplugged."  
  
"Yeah. And worse, I'm Resistance. The very thing he was created to fight against. Romeo and Juliet, only worse. Two species, both alike in dignity."  
  
Indignity was right. Visions of robot nookie swam through Trinity's head. "There has to be something you can do about it..."  
  
"Well, Neo suggested going to see the Oracle."  
  
Trinity blinked. The possibility hadn't even occurred to her. "It's a good idea."  
  
"Yeah. Yes, it is. And I'm probably going to go... as soon as I can get up the nerve to ask Morpheus..." Solace smiled weakly.  
  
With a cracking of knees and another deep sigh, Trinity stood up. "I'll talk to Morpheus, if you want. You probably should go see the Oracle... if for no other reason than to get her take on the whole thing. And... Sol, honey... you are going to have to tell Morpheus sometime."  
  
Solace nodded, looking miserable and crying quietly again. It didn't show in her voice, though. "I know. I'll talk to him after I see what the Oracle has to say."  
  
As incomprehensible as she found the whole situation, Solace was still like a sister to Trinity, at least most of the time. She enfolded the younger woman in a strong hug. "It'll be okay, honey. It'll all be okay, just give it time." 


	21. Day Thirty Five

"Time and patience."  
  
Smith sighed. It had been a long few days, both with Solace and without her. He had had to either explain or cover up his lapse in productivity, and given that he would be answering to a far harsher task master than any human he had chosen to cover it up. This had resulted in far more arrests than he would have liked, and far more contact with the humans than he really wanted. Except, of course, for Solace.   
  
And in the end it had all been futile anyway. He still didn't know if he was going to tell her.  
  
"Most humans have neither time nor patience. I am surprised..."  
  
"That I do? Why? You already know I'm not like most people."  
  
Smith shook his head "I suppose I do."  
  
Solace repressed a twitch as a young skater appeared seemingly out of nowhere beside her, and then just as quickly disappeared. Smith wondered if she would ever settle down, stop being so jumpy. "You keep trying to put me into a category, a box. Don't. That's a sign of sloppy thinking, for one thing."  
  
The Agent blinked. "I do?"  
  
"You do."  
  
Sloppy thinking. She was right. Again. "I will attempt to curb my pigeonholing in the future."  
  
She chuckled. "Save it for the pigeons. Which reminds me..." She reached across her waist and pulled what appeared to be a stale loaf of bread out of her purse. "Feed the birds, tuppence a bag."  
  
He stared at her as though she'd grown a second head.   
  
"Mary Poppins?"  
  
Query_marypoppinsl result_film. It scrolled before him in a microsecond.   
  
"You intend to feed the pigeons?"  
  
She rolled her eyes at him. "If you're going to quote Banks..."  
  
"Feed the birds and what do you get..." he said at the same time.  
  
"Fat birds!"  
  
Solace laughed. "Nevertheless..." she broke the bread in half and handed him one, which he took reluctantly. He started knocking off chunks and, almost immediately, birds began to flock to them. Smith tried not to think of the very many diseases they carried.  
  
'"Not like that!" she laughed again and pushed his hands down gently, holding her half a loaf out in front of her to show him. "You have to break it into smaller pieces."  
  
"Why?"  
  
She blushed. It was rare that she did that. "It's silly... it's a superstition. The birds that fly away with your food in their mouths take your prayers with them."  
  
He blinked.   
  
"I know... ridiculous, isn't it."  
  
It certainly sounded ridiculous. But over the past month of association with her he was starting to learn that sometimes the easy answer wasn't always the right or true one. And even in matters of superstition, the belief usually served a functional purpose.   
  
And then, too, he didn't want to disappoint her. Didn't want to hurt her. The rational explanation was that she was still fragile from the events of the last week, and he still needed the data she provided. Again, as with her, the easy answer for him was becoming less and less aligned with the true one. It annoyed him, when he allowed himself to consider it.  
  
But he did break the bread into smaller pieces.  
  
They watched the pigeons scatter. Smith amused himself by calculating patterns out of their flights, then snarled inwardly as he realized he was doing it out of whimsy. When all the birds and bread had gone they continued walking, passing by Joe at his chess board.  
  
"How is your work going?"  
  
"It's going... I'm doing in-house work for now... editing, mostly. Rachel's letting me take it easy for a couple weeks. Then I go back into the field."  
  
"Where people point guns at you."  
  
:"You're never going to let that go, are you?"   
  
"I still cannot believe that you have such a disregard for your own safety."  
  
"Hey, that car wasn't my fault. It came out of nowhere."  
  
"At that speed you would have had to see it coming..."  
  
"Oh, hush. I'm here, I'm alive, what more do you want?"  
  
Smith didn't answer, almost afraid that he would have an answer for her. Definitely nervous about what that answer might be.   
  
"Hey..." she brushed her fingertips over his arm, misapprehending the reason for his silence. "I'm here, I'm alive. Despite handguns, hot-rodders, and hordes of vicious gang-bangers. I'm okay. I'll survive." She smiled. "No power in the 'verse can stop me."  
  
For once, Smith actually knew what the hell she was talking about. Primarily because he had downloaded that program in preparation for the apprehension of another potential Resistance member. "You stole that."  
  
"I did indeed. You may now arrest me for theft of a line." She held out her hands as though to be cuffed, and the Agent rolled his eyes. They kept walking.  
  
"Is getting shot at a common occupational hazard for you?" He couldn't resist asking the question, although this time it was because he was genuinely curious.   
  
"Not usually. Oh, we'll get pushed around by cops, staties..." she grinned sideways at him. "Feds. But most of the time people know better than to point guns at the press; it doesn't help matters any and it just opens them up to a lawsuit. I just happened to get unlucky that time."  
  
"Ah."  
  
"Does it really bother you, that someone tried to shoot me? Or was going to, anyway."  
  
He temporized with an ease that only a computer program could have mustered. "I'm curious as to why you would go out of your way to put yourself in a position to be shot at, simply for the sake of a good story."  
  
"Well, as I said, I don't usually get shot at..." Smith nodded. "But ... it's about the information. It's all about the information. It's about what people know today, that's where the power is. Hell, most of the time that's where the power always was. And if I can get accurate information to as many people as possible... well, that's worth risking a bullet for."  
  
He stared at her, thinking about her words. "There's a war out there... a world war. And it's not about who's got the most bullets, it's about who controls the information." Her eyes widened at his imitation of the actor, but he had taken care to adulterate it so that it didn't seem too unusual.   
  
They finished the quote together. "What we see and hear, where we work, how we think..."  
  
Solace nodded. "It's all about the information. Exactly."  
  
"A very... enlightened view."  
  
She shrugged. "I try."  
  
More silence. They passed under the trees that let their stippled light down onto the paved path beneath their feet. A breeze tickled at the ends of his hair and blew her skirt gently around her ankles. He enjoyed the peace of the moment, especially the way she didn't seem to feel the common human need to fill up a silence with talk. The lapses in conversation between them had started to stretch longer and longer, but more than that, they had started to be comfortable.  
  
Something occurred to him. "Tremain?"  
  
She shrugged wryly. "Doesn't fit well with Solace, does it?"  
  
He turned around and walked backwards for a little while. For some reason he wanted to see her face when he said it. Lingering remnants of his programming attempted to override. Rebellious, he quashed them. "I think it suits you."  
  
"Really"  
  
"Yes."  
  
She smiled. "Thanks."  
  
"And what is your real first name?"  
  
Her smile was sheepish, and she was staring at the ground "My real name is Alice. At least, it was after my parents realized that Solace wasn't an appropriate name for someone who might want to grow up to be a lawyer or a banker or something." She chuckled more to herself than for his benefit and pushed her hair back. "They changed my name to Alice when I was ten."  
  
"Alice Tremain."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"It is a pretty name." His words sounded stilted, even to him. It had been that way a lot lately.   
  
"Thank you..."  
  
There was a brief silence.  
  
"John Smith?"  
  
He shrugged. "It was the best my parents could come up with on short notice," he temporized. Thought briefly of the Architect, the closest she was likely to get to seeing anything resembling a father figure to Smith. Thought of what its facial expression was likely to be upon hearing this conversation.   
  
"So you were a surprise."  
  
"Something like that."  
  
The conversation was rapidly descending from the surreal to what he would have almost called the sublime. And it still wasn't any place he wanted it to go.   
  
"If I have a son, I'd be tempted to name him Lewis. Just because. And a daughter named Carol. Or maybe that's just silly..."  
  
"It's just silly."   
  
"Spoilsport."  
  
They walked along in silence, friendly, easy, peaceful. That was one thing about Solace he tentatively enjoyed; if she didn't have anything to say, she wouldn't say anything. On the other hand, if she had something to say, whether it was of substance or just a random utterance, she would say it. She wouldn't, however, necessarily expect a response. Unfortunately this seemed to place the burden of starting the conversation on Smith, and he still wasn't sure he wanted to tell her.  
  
"Solace..." he said finally.  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"What would you say if I told you..." the words wouldn't come out. No human phrase could describe it adequately, and to explain what it meant to be abruptly bereft of purpose and meaning would have meant disclosing things to her that could put her in jeopardy... or make her part of the Resistance. The thought stabbed at his chest. Suddenly he didn't want to say anything. And that was another good thing about Solace... she didn't press. Didn't push. If he wanted to let it drop, it would stay dropped.  
  
"Told me what?"  
  
"Nothing." 


	22. Day Thirty Six

He was still turning the idea over and over in his mind the next day. In fact, he had not departed from the park the entire night. She probably wouldn't think anything of it... he didn't look any worse for the wear, didn't have any sort of body odor or bags under his eyes... and she had left him in the park the previous evening, with a promise to be back the next day. Which she was, of course, as she always was. But he still hadn't decided whether or not to tell her.   
  
And then, that might be a moot point. She ran up to meet him and stopped ten feet away, slowing down to a walk until she stood a bare foot in front of him, staring up, eyes worried.   
  
"Are you okay?"  
  
His lip curled, but he made no sound. She reached out and laid her hands on his lower arms.   
  
"Smith?"  
  
"I am fine."  
  
Her lip curled, in what had to be an unconscious imitation of him. They had been spending too much time together as it was.   
  
"You look like hell, Smith. You're slumped, your eyes are dead... deader than usual. You haven't said a damn thing to anyone, and from what Joe says you haven't left this park in the last twenty-four hours."  
  
... he had forgotten about Joe. Dammit.   
  
"Smith, what's going on? I'm worried about you..." her voice grew quiet. Her body grew completely still except for the touch of her hands on his sleeves. Her eyes locked with his, blue and green and wide and full of concern. Did he really look that bad?  
  
She waited for him to talk. He watched her, wondering when she would come out and ask him what was going on. That was usually what humans did, after all. Granted, she was a little more strange than most, but she would surely ask him what was bothering him... after a while. At some point. The minutes ticked by, and neither of them moved or changed expression. Was she really going to wait until he said something?  
  
"I..." he started, then stopped. He still didn't know how to explain it.  
  
"If you don't want to talk about it, just say so." Her voice was very quiet, barely audible. "I'll worry, but if you don't want to talk it's not my place to try to force you. But I am worried about you, and I would like to know what's going on. You've helped me enough..." And now she looked... haunted. "You've helped me more than I have words for. And I'd like to try and help you. If it's something that can be helped."  
  
"You can't help... no one can. It is merely something I must live with." He was surprised at how easily the words came out.  
  
"Can I at least try?"  
  
He took a deep, deep breath and let it out very slowly. Really, he was just stalling for time at this point. A random search of appropriate ways to say what he wanted to say turned up with an odd quote. "Lady, will you walk a bout with your friend?" He held his arm out to her.  
  
"All right..." she slowly looped her arm through his and followed where he led. "Shakespeare. Strange, but I can deal with it."  
  
They walked into one of the myriad areas in the park that was entirely covered by foliage. When they were completely alone... when he could be sure that they were alone for a while... he turned and faced her.  
  
"I have been terminated."  
  
Confusion crossed her eyes for a split second, then horror, then a mixed bag of sympathy, worry, and compassion. Each emotion was reflected, refracted in her eyes. He wondered at his ability to pick them all out so neatly now. He couldn't have done it a month before. She was nodding slowly.   
  
"All right." She took a deep breath. "What happens now?"  
  
He blinked.   
  
"Excuse me?"  
  
"What... do you do now? Find other employment... is there some sort of severance package..."  
  
The thought was laughable. Unfortunately, he did find himself laughing. Laughing until he sat down abruptly on the ground. Solace knelt beside him unceremoniously in the dirt, hands on his shoulders, looking worried. He stared at the pattern in her skirt until order reasserted itself in his mind. Just in time, he remembered to take perhaps ten times as long about it. It was strange... he was having the same sorts of reactions he would have expected of a human only faster, so much faster. Machinistic reflexes, he supposed. He would have to be careful... if he wasn't careful, he would cycle through the emotions ...  
  
He stopped that line of thinking before it started.  
  
... behavioral patterns fast enough that she would think he had a mental or emotional disorder.   
  
The pattern on her skirt was intricate, and seemed to be of Indian origin. Stylized leaves wove themselves in and out of vines, with equally stylized berries occurring here and there. A very nice effect. He followed the line of one of the vines until he thought he could speak again. Solace had not moved the entire time.  
  
"No... although I don't have any need to take another job. I am adequately provided for food..." since he didn't need it... "Shelter, clothing..."  
  
She waited for him to continue, then spoke up herself when he didn't. "That job was your life, Smith. I know it, and you know it." She settled into a sitting position next to him. "What are you going to do now?"  
  
That was the question, wasn't it. "You'll get your dress muddy..."  
  
"Screw the skirt. I'm serious..."  
  
He was silent for a comparatively long time. "I don't know."  
  
She sighed, rested her head on the furthest end of his shoulder... presumably in case he objected to the contact. Her hand sought and found his, gently clasping and interlacing her fingers. He realized that this contact was more likely for her comfort than his. He realized that every second she remained in close contact with him she was further contaminating his formerly pristine utilities. He also realized that he did not want to move.   
  
"How did this happen?" Her voice was still soft, still quiet.   
  
"I was assigned ... with Brown and Jones, the two agents who you observed with me at our first meeting... to apprehend and secure a computer hacker, one we believed to be a significant threat to our operations. I failed, and in the process there was... more collateral damage than the Agency was willing to endure. I was the Agent in charge, and it was therefore deemed my fault."  
  
Her eyes widened a little, but she didn't say anything.  
  
"You are right, you know. The Agency was my life. And now I no longer have it, I am left somewhat rudderless, adrift, without occupation, without meaning or purpose..."   
  
Her hand tightened over his.  
  
"There is nothing for me to do now, I have no requirements, no framework around which to base my daily life. I know what it is I must do, but..." he trailed off, not entirely sure how to explain deletion to Solace.  
  
She waited a good fifteen minutes before asking him about it. "There is some sort of protocol for people in your position?"  
  
Yes. Deletion. "We disappear quietly and are never heard from again."  
  
"Ouch."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Why would anyone willingly submit to that?"  
  
He sighed. The breath seemed to shake his entire body, and for the first time since Neo's attack he felt as though he were somehow losing control of his own self. It wasn't pleasant. He found himself gripping Solace's hands until even her face turned white, and forced himself to loosen his grasp. Once that was done he decided he was able to speak again.  
  
"By the time such a thing is likely to occur we have been trained to submit to it willingly, to believe that it is the right and proper thing to do. This training seldom fails or ... misfires."  
  
Solace nodded slowly. "Brainwashing." Contempt dripped from her lips and he glanced at her, startled.   
  
"Something like that."  
  
He looked back down at their clasped hands. He didn't remember taking both her hands in both of his. "But now I find myself unwilling to be spirited away, to be erased from existance, as far as anyone else is concerned, to be rendered inconsequential and shuffled aside as a malfunctioning piece of very high security equipment. I do not want to go quietly into that good night."  
  
The faintest hint of a smile. "Rage, rage against the dying of the light."  
  
"And the most aggravating part of it all is that I don't know why..."  
  
Long silence.   
  
"Why you were ... terminated, or why you don't want to submit to the party line?"  
  
"The latter."  
  
She took a deep breath. "Things change, Smith. People change. Circumstances change. I told you that at the beginning of our conversations."  
  
"I know. But I do not."  
  
She smiled gently but didn't argue the point. It was probably for the best. He didn't feel in the mood for a debate, however friendly.  
  
"Which still brings us back to the first point... What do you want to do?"  
  
"I don't know."  
  
Shy smile from her. From him, a death-lock stare on the ground. It was the big problem... he didn't want to be deleted, but he didn't know what else he was going to do. His entire existence had been as an Agent, and now that it was over he had no conception of being able to do anything else. How else to fulfill the purpose that was so deeply ingrained in him it was as hard to shed as the suit he wore. And yet in a sense he was also left purposeless; his purpose had been to enforce the system, to act as an Agent of the Matrix, but he had been stripped of that rank and status. His earpiece, still connected but left dangling down his collar, was a reminder of that. Absently he pulled it out and balanced it on his palm, staring at it.  
  
"Was that a symbolic gesture, or are you just allergic to plastic?"   
  
He looked over. She was smiling, but her eyes were still concerned. He wondered how long it would take to lose the worried crease between her eyes.   
  
"Largely symbolic, now."  
  
"Ah." Pause. "Shall we make a few more symbolic gestures?"  
  
He blinked at her. "Excuse me?"  
  
She reached up and quite thoroughly tousled his hair, gently tugged his glasses down and off, and undid his tie with deft and expert fingers. She was probably equally capable of doing it back up again. For a finishing touch, she unbuttoned his suit jacket and shook it a little so that it hung limply from his shoulders.   
  
"There. A final act of defiance against the Agency that doesn't see a valuable resource when it has one."  
  
He blinked at her. Ran slimly tapered fingers down the length of his tie.   
  
"Do you know how to put one of these on?"  
  
She chuckled. "I had uncles, once. Uncles that could never dress themselves appropriately to save their life. Uncle Benny thought 'black tie' meant his fatigues should be tied at the ankle with a black cord."  
  
The image was jarring.   
  
"Our uniform does not allow for any freedom of individual style."  
  
"I can see that." She wrinkled her nose, then smiled to show that she wasn't entirely serious. "Although you could probably have gotten away with sneaking in a Mickey Mouse tie tack or something. I can't imagine that your bosses would have objected to that."  
  
Smith tried to picture the other Agents' faces... as close to a 'boss' as he was likely to get... if he had ever appeared with a Mickey Mouse tie tack. The thought was ludicrous... and yet now he was wishing he had, if only to assert some sort of creativity, ability to adapt.   
  
"I would have thought a skull and crossbones would be more appropriate," he murmured before he let himself think about it too much. Solace laughed delightedly. The crease was still there.  
  
"Maybe a skeletal hand. Or, I know! The eye inside the pyramid, the symbol of the Illuminati. Everyone says that the government is in league with the Illuminati. Or the Freemasons."  
  
"They do, do they?"  
  
"Yep."  
  
"How..." inspiration. Suddenly he wanted very much to make her laugh, to make that worried crease in her forehead go away. He didn't want to be reminded that today was somehow different from the rest of their days. He didn't want to think about what had happened, what was going to happen. "fascinating."  
  
Solace stared at his single upraised eyebrow for a couple of seconds before bursting out laughing. He smiled. He had to. It was starting to come easier, though.  
  
"Thank you, Mister Spock..." she said finally when she could draw breath without giggling. "Oh good golly miss molly. You would be an absolute riot at cosplay."  
  
He blinked. He didn't even want to query that one, both for the strangeness of the word and the chance of alerting the other Agents.   
  
"Cosplay?"  
  
"Cosplay... er, costume play. Commonly known as costume parties, but I suppose the word mutated." She shrugged.  
  
He frowned slightly. "Explain?"  
  
"We-ell. Every so often someone has a party... or a convention. And there's a sort of an event... cosplay. People sew, beg, borrow, purchase, cobble together, or do whatever they have to in order to make a costume that looks like some character they want to portray. Like..." she struggled for an example. "Charlie's Angels. Sometimes a group of women will get together and go as Charlie's Angels. Or characters from comic books."  
  
"And.. what happens at these parties?"  
  
"Oh, people mingle. Same thing that happens at most parties. Sometimes there's a contest to see who has the best costume or who can stay in character the best. It's a lot of tun." She looked at him speculatively.   
  
He found himself drawing back with an exaggerated expression of alarm. And, really, why not? Now that he was no longer an Agent he was no longer bound by their rules. He was starting to realize what that meant. "What?"  
  
She grinned. "Oh, just thinking ... there's a party tomorrow night, comic book night, over at one of the Another Universe stores. You'd make a perfect Elric, or Dream. I'd almost suggest Elrond, but I don't think they've made a successful Lord of the Rings comic book yet."  
  
Now that one he was familiar with. "An elf?"  
  
"Sure."  
  
"You wish to make me into an elf?"  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"No."  
  
"But..."  
  
"No."  
  
"Spoilsport." She laughed. "You can go as Dream. That doesn't involve nearly as much dressing up, and only a little bit of makeup. Besides..." her smile faded, and that worried line was back. "It might take your mind off of things."  
  
He would have welcomed almost any type of diversion she could inflict on him at that moment. The relief he felt was only slightly tempered by his habitual emotionlessness. "All right."  
  
She blinked. "All right? You'll go?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
She laughed. Pressed the back of her hand to his forehead. "Are you sick? Wait... are you really Smith? Did you just agree to look ridiculous for the sake of entertainment? I think I may have a heart attack right here..." Her hand pressed to her chest and she leaned back dramatically.   
  
"It does happen occasionally. Very. Occasionally."  
  
"Well, then, we'd better make the most of it while you're still in the mood... and I think I can find something for you to cosplay in. Unless you have jeans and a t-shirt, both black?"  
  
He gave her another one of those raised-eyebrow looks. "I?"  
  
"Point."   
  
He almost expected her to leap to her feet right at that moment and go tearing off to find him a costume. He was very relieved when she didn't, when she remained seated, rested her head further up on his shoulder, took his hands in hers again. They sat in the park, in the dirt, and watched the birds fly from tree to tree, making nests, laying eggs. Eventually she stretched her legs out till they were almost in the path, but since there weren't any walkers along that particular road today it didn't matter much. The wind rose and died, and at one point whipped his tie clean off his neck and wrapped it around a nearby tree. Neither of them moved, or gave any sign that it had happened. He did, however, take note of the bird that decided it would make a wonderful nest lining. 


	23. Day Thirty Seven 1

You can pick me up after work, she had said. Meet me outside of the Jefferson building at six o'clock. I should be done by then, and even if I'm not I'll make it up tomorrow. We can go back to my place and Julian should have some stuff that will fit you.  
  
Smith shook his head. He wasn't as sanguine as she about what would happen tonight.  
  
He wasn't even sure he could acquire a car, much less an apartment or any of the other things he was so used to not needing. If he tried to requisition anything within the Agency, even surreptitiously, he would be found and deleted. With each day that passed he was finding he wanted to be deleted less and less. And he didn't understand it. Largely, he blamed Neo. Neo had entered him, altered him, changed him. Neo was responsible for the inquiry and he was responsible for Smith's downfall and now he was responsible for Smith's stubborn refusal to be deleted. It never occurred to him that Solace might also have had a role in anything.  
  
But none of those thoughts solved his problem of where to get a car, an apartment, all the usual trappings of human life. He briefly considered dropping by the house of the woman so quaintly called the Oracle, asking her how she maintained her life in dealing with humans. The ever-ready snarl leapt immediately to his upper lip at the thought. That would never do.   
  
The back doors. He would have to go through the doors, create for himself a bank account in some well-established yet obscure bank big enough to sustain him, with regular and large deposits. There were always habitation facilities on the open market, he could procure a house and a car easily with that money. It was, after all, always money that ruled so much of the humans' lives.   
  
So he had decided and so he had done. For no reason he could discern (he was rapidly growing to despise these strange occurrences that he supposed were whims) he also purchased a motorcycle, which was currently under the shelter of the apartment building's garage. The apartment itself was rather lavish, and he only hoped it was within his supposed price range.   
  
It didn't matter.   
  
He leaned against the side of his 1967 Shelby Mustang GT 500 and waited. If nothing else, he thought smugly, the car got the attention of the humans.   
  
And it got Solace's attention as well. She walked out of the lobby and stopped in mid step and mid conversation with another young man in a suit. She blinked.   
  
"Solace? I am on time, am I not?" He was fully aware that he was smirking. He didn't care.  
  
"Is that..."  
  
"A 1967 Shelby Mustang GT 500, yes. I thought you might have a weakness for classic cars." He permitted a note of smugness to enter his voice, matching the smirk.  
  
Her eyebrows arched. "You're showing off."  
  
"Of course."  
  
She took a moment to digest that, and then smiled. "All right."  
  
He opened the door, gesturing her in like a gentleman. She smiled. As weighty as the past few days had been, even her smile had a relaxing effect, an ability to reduce all dire problems to minor inconveniences in the back of his mind. Her carefree attitude was contagious. Smith noted it in the back of his mind, noted a need to guard against it even as he slowly smiled back. As much as he ever smiled, anyway.  
  
"I don't think I've ever seen you drive before," she said after a little while. He was threading his way through traffic very easily.  
  
"Not when you would have remembered..." Uncomfortable silence. Neither of them wanted to remember the attack in the park.  
  
"Classic cars, permanently grafted suit..."  
  
"My suit is not permanently grafted to my body."  
  
"... I wonder what I'll find when I finally enter the dwelling of the enigmatic Mister Smith."   
  
He glanced over at her. She was teasing, blatantly. But it did serve to remind him that he'd forgotten entirely to furnish the apartment. He would have to remember to do that before she entered... or come up with a decent excuse.  
  
"Furniture neatly wrapped in plastic? An entire refrigerator full of condiments?" she kept on teasing him.  
  
"An entire rack of identical suits, neatly pressed," he drawled, nary a hint of a grin. Solace laughed.  
  
"Who says Agents doesn't have a sense of humor."   
  
"Everybody.'  
  
"Point." Solace chuckled. "It was still a good joke. What's your inseam?"  
  
It was such an abrupt change of subject that even Smith blinked. "Excuse me?"  
  
"Julian tossed me a couple spares from one of his old costumes," she gestured behind her to the duffel bag she'd tossed into the back seat. "Hopefully one or two of them will fit. Just want to be sure you two are approximately the right size... thirty-two or so?" she glanced at him, looking him up and down. It was too clinical to be sexual, and yet left him a little disturbed.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Good." She leaned back, self-satisfied.  
  
"Solace..."  
  
"Mmm?"  
  
Pause. "Nothing."  
  
They arrived at her building, walked up to her flat. Solace seemed to be unaware of the uncomfortable silence that was threatening to descend; Smith knew better than to think she hadn't noticed. As usual, she was treating it with the same tactful indifference that she treated all other conversational difficulties. She opened the door and tossed the keys on the table, gesturing at the other two doors. "Bedroom or bathroom, take your pick."  
  
He blinked. Changing rooms. She meant changing rooms. "Er..." he headed for the bathroom, stopping only when she touched his arm and handed him the duffel bag. This was starting to become more disorienting than diverting.  
  
"Here's hoping my costume still fits me... it's been a while since I've done any Endless." Her voice drifted in from the bedroom. "Oh, damn..." her voice became inaudible as she muttered what sounded like curses at a recalcitrant box.   
  
Smith sighed and turned to his own costume. There was something profoundly disquieting about removing his suit, the uniform that had been the symbol of his existence for longer than Solace had been alive. Then again, he wasn't an Agent anymore. The suit still clung to him like the miasma of a thick, acid rain. He wasn't an Agent anymore. He had to remember that. Tonight's... festivities... might help. He smoothed the lapels of his jacket down, pressed nonexistant wrinkles out of his pants. He wasn't an Agent anymore. It was okay to be something else. Even if he didn't exactly know what that something else was going to be.   
  
At least the clothing she had chosen for him... the costume... it didn't look like a costume. Not like any costume he had seen. It seemed to consist of dark gray jeans, a black t-shirt, and black boots, with a black leather trenchcoat that had been bunched up and shoved so deep into one side that he almost missed it. Everything went on easily and seemed to fit.   
  
He looked strange outside of the suit.   
  
"Ow!" The sounds outside of the bathroom seemed to indicate that she was tripping over something. "Dammit!" Smith emerged from the bathroom curious.  
  
"Stupid table..." Solace was rubbing her shin where the hose she was wearing seemed to be torn... deliberately? He couldn't tell. His eyes opened wider. She was wearing torn hose, covered by equally torn fishnet hose. Over that was a white crinoline, over that a white dress. Ribbons dangled from her hair, and her sleeves draped tight over her arms and loose over her wrists. She was wearing mismatched shoes, hi-tops, Converse... the brand logo was emblazoned over her ankle bone... and there was a small set of ankle bells around one, which she had been trying to fasten when she had tripped over the table. One-handed, yet, because in the other hand she carried a black leather biker's jacket that had to be three sizes too big.  
  
"Solace?"  
  
She looked up, toppled backwards, and wound have fallen over if he hadn't dived across the table. They ended up in a most undignified position, sprawled halfway over the floor, end table, and each other.   
  
"Oof... sorry about that..." she grinned sheepishly.  
  
"What are you doing, Solace?" He helped pull her to her feet, confused.   
  
"Attempting to put on my Delerium costume. It's going less than stellar, but..." she shrugged. "Here. I brought out some of the comics so you have an idea of who and what you're playing. You're Dream, I'm Delerium... here, start with Brief Lives, that's probably easiest."  
  
She handed him a stack of comics, each tastefully arrayed in a different color of the rainbow. Brief Lives seemed to be yellow. "Dream?"  
  
That enigmatic smile again. "Go on, read. It'll take me a while to do my hair anyway. Is the bathroom safe?"  
  
Safe... oh. "Yes." Human foibles were so strange. She went in. Smith opened the comic book.  
  
-  
  
-  
  
-  
  
-  
  
-  
  
Solace had to clear her throat three times before she finally got his attention. Actually, he had heard her the first time, but as strange as they were the comic books were also compelling. The third time, though, he put the comic book down.   
  
"See something you like?" she was smirking, probably similar to the expression on his face earlier in the evening.   
  
"I see why you chose to play Delerium."   
  
She chuckled. "Might as well put a natural affinity to good use." The blue eye winked. "What do you think of Dream?"  
  
He still wasn't sure what to say of her choice. "I'm not sure if ... should I be worried?"  
  
She looked confused for a second, and then her eyes cleared. "Well, I certainly hope you're not going to throw your girlfriends into Hell, or be forced to kill your son's severed head, but you do talk somewhat similarly to Dream. Very formal, very correct, and ... poetic."  
  
"Poetic?" He wasn't sure whether to be amused or insulted. He settled for amused.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Hmm."  
  
She smiled. "Moment of truth time. Hair wash or wig?"   
  
He blinked. "What?"  
  
"Dream's scarily black hair with the blue highlights. We can either use a hair wash, which washes out the next time you wash your hair, or a wig, which looks a little more fake but doesn't involve taking the risk that your hair might turn green."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Kidding." She smiled. "Besides, we have a little time for you to decide. While I paint your face white."  
  
"What?..." Pause. "Oh." Longer pause. "Wig, then."  
  
She chuckled. "All right..." Went and got a compact the size of her outstretched hand and a wig. She had tiny hands. "I'll do the makeup first so that we can see how much I need to patch after the wig is gone... ooh. Hang on."   
  
He blinked. She darted into the bedroom again and came trotting back out with a compact that looked ... smaller, for one thing. She opened it; it had five different shades of blue and gray. "Solace...?"  
  
"I used to help do hair and makeup at college. We had our yearly productions of Rocky Horror... all the weird stuff. Hold still..."   
  
If he had thought that changing into a different set of clothes was disconcerting, it was nothing compared to the feeling of her fingertips under his chin, tilting his face upwards. He knelt on the floor, and she knelt in front of him and applied a makeup sponge to his face. It was very cold, and smelled faintly sweet. If indeed there was such a thing.  
  
He blinked. She moved the sponge over the sides of his face, barely past his eyes.   
  
"Talk about something..." she suggested. "It'll take your mind off of whatever it is you're thinking about that's putting that sad, maybe worried expression on your face."  
  
That was more disturbing than the thought of her fingertips brushing his hair away from his forehead so she could...   
  
"I am not worried."  
  
She smiled. "Good."  
  
"Who else will be there?" It was an irrelevant question. He didn't know any of her friends anyway.  
  
She frowned, perhaps from concentration or perhaps from ... "Tom and Chick probably won't be there... I think they have to work. Richard might be there. Julian and Cassie will probably be there, if her father lets her. Rain, Star, and Lily will probably all show up. I think the Stirling crowd... and Nick."  
  
Of all of the names, only a few were familiar. "What are they like?"  
  
She smiled. The sponge came down over his nose, forcing him to close his eyes. "Nick is... dramatic. Very dramatic. We all think he's been angling for Julian, but he keeps saying he's straight. He's an actor, which explains a great deal about him once you see him... has been all his life. Sometimes I think he acts even when he's not on stage."  
  
He couldn't think of anything to say to that. It sounded too familiar. "Huh."  
  
"Julian you saw, briefly... gay as a goose, and a real sweetheart... close your eyes." He did so. "Richard can be a bit sullen sometimes... most of the time... but he's all right. He needs to lighten up, realize that life isn't entirely a craphole."   
  
He barely registered her words as he felt her soft touch, the sponge over his eyes. Careful dabbing at the corners, fingertips brushing over his cheeks followed by the makeup sponge again. Her voice, from far away.   
  
"Smith... don't fall asleep on me now."  
  
He pried his mind away from the new, strange sensations. "Who are Rain, Star, and Lily?"  
  
"Girls, really... Rain teaches kindergarten, Star's a photographer, and Lily is a musician...They're all very shy, which is I guess why they stick together." Her fingertips brushed over his lips, and her voice faded out again. She was applying the makeup over his lips, and it tasted of her, the underlying taste of the scented soap she used (soft, with oils of vanilla and cocoa butter... or was that lotion) and the overarching taste of the makeup, which was cold and bland. He licked his lips unconsciously, and her laughter brought him back awake. "Don't do that..."  
  
"Sorry..." he opened his eyes. His face must have been completely white by now.  
  
"Careful, I'm going to put on some shading now... give you a sort of blueish, grayish tint." Her fingertips barely touched his cheeks. "And then I'm going to have to go wash off my hands while you let that dry. The good part is, it's good and durable theatre makeup. Once you've got it set in it should stay no matter what you eat."  
  
"Ah..." Pause. "Good."   
  
She stopped after the first cheek, pulled back and looked at him intensely. He blinked a couple of times and then stared back at her when he realized that this was not part of the makeup application process. "Solace?"  
  
"Smith." She mimicked his tone, but her face was no less serious. "Are you sure you want to do this?"  
  
Was he? No, not really. Were there any good reasons for him to do it? Probably. He could think of a few off the top of his programmed head. He should meet Solace's friends if he was going to be spending much more time with her, it was only proper. He should attempt to distance himself from the image of an Agent so as not to draw attention to himself. He might look into how humans behaved, what they did for recreation. Were these really the reasons he was doing it? He didn't know. Ultimately, as with everything else about Solace, it wasn't the reasons he could come up with for doing as she suggested that bothered him. It was the reasons he was actually doing it, the reasons that required justification, excuses.   
  
"No..." he said finally. "But I think that I have to."  
  
She nodded, very slowly, then before he could react she had kissed him gently on the forehead. Comforting to businesslike in seconds, she took his face in her hands again and shadowed the other cheek. "Don't worry," she smiled, enigmatic, mysterious, and very womanlike. "I'll take care of you."  
  
He really wasn't sure what to make of that. 


	24. Day Thirty Seven 2

Smith wasn't sure what bothered him most. There was the incessant nattering of what felt like hundreds of human beings (it had to be only a few dozen) in a small, enclosed space. The lights in the mall were too bright, too grating, especially after all the time spent in parks and under trees and sunlight. There were women, too young, who were trying to look as though they were older and more professional, and there were older women who were trying to look young again. The men were, almost as a whole, attempting either to look like women or just merely inhuman. He did have to admire, though, the tenacity and patience of one man who seemed to have made an entire suit of chainmail out of soda ring-tops.   
  
Solace seemed to be enjoying herself, although he was startled to discover that he couldn't tell. Whether it was because she was in more company than just himself, or because she was inside such an artificial environment as a mini-mall, he didn't know. But something about her posture and attitude had changed and made it harder for him to discern her moods. It was as though she had put up the polite façade that most humans walked around with. He hadn't realized until now that she had lacked that quality. And, really, now he was starting to wonder if it was that aspect of the evening that was grating on his nerves so much: the revelation that she, like the rest of the humans, could be so false.   
  
Or maybe it was just that he didn't have her all to himself anymore.  
  
No, it had to be the falseness. He was a computer program, he didn't get jealous. It just didn't happen. Damnable woman. He lead where she followed, watched as she threaded her way through the crowd, making polite greetings to everyone and finally slowing on the other side of the room.  
  
"I can't believe the entire Westfield High gaggle showed up..." she murmured through a polite smile when they'd reached the other side.   
  
He blinked. "Who?"  
  
"That cluster of particularly offensive girls who want to be the entirety of Sailor Moon and then some senshi that haven't been discovered yet. If they come over and titter at me I'm going to turn them all into butterflies."  
  
He blinked again. "You can't do that."  
  
"No, but it'd be perfectly in character for me to threaten to." She sighed. "I think you got the better costume out of this deal. No one expects Dream to do anything but stand in a corner and look disapproving. I have to actually mingle. I didn't think there'd actually be so many of the high school crowd here..." It was half an apology, which wasn't what he'd expected this early in the evening.  
  
"Are any of your friends here?"  
  
"Not... wait, there's Julian." She put on the perkiest face he had ever seen on her and actually skipped over to the young man. Smith wouldn't have believed it if he hadn't seen it with his own optic sensors.  
  
"Little sister..." Julian, who somehow had managed to look eerily feminine, was dressed in a simple suit and the same white-face makeup she had caked over the Agent's face. He bowed to Solace, presenting her with a mylar balloon in the shape of a fish.  
  
She giggled. "Smile when you say that. You're supposed to be more unpleasant, you know." With that comment Smith suddenly realized who the young man was supposed to be. "Where are the rest of ..." there was a barely discernible pause. "Our brothers and sisters?"  
  
Julian pointed across the room where a hooded figure with a giant book was lurking. "Our eldest brother is being sullen, as always..." he smirked. "It was the best costume I could think of for Richard. This way he can not talk to anyone and still be in character."  
  
This actually sounded interesting. Smith stepped away from the wall, mentally scanning through the literature he had read. "Desire..."  
  
"Dream." Julian put on an expression of intimate distaste, and for a few seconds Smith wasn't sure whether or not the man actually meant it. "And are you enjoying yourself for once?"   
  
"I..."  
  
Julian winked. Smith relaxed a fraction.   
  
"... have agreed to accompany our younger sister. Whether I am enjoying myself or not is immaterial."  
  
Solace winked at him, smiling and bobbing her fish-on-a-strong. "I think our brother ought to enjoy himself more."  
  
Smith stared at her. He had no idea how she'd managed to convey the impression of the disjointed, colored-in speech balloons from the graphic novel. It was... eerie. "So you've said before," was all he could think of to say.  
  
"We've all said it before."   
  
A dark-haired girl in black jeans, a black shirt, and the white-face appeared at Smith's elbow as if she had been conjured there. Death, he supposed. Solace and Julian seemed to know her, and she grinned at them in return.   
  
"Smith, this is Cassie..." Solace murmured. "Cassie, Smith."  
  
Nods of greeting were exchanged. Smith revised his estimate of her age down from early twenties to mid-teens.   
  
"So... just how dire is this party, anyway?" Julian said it in a comparatively normal tone of voice. Smith was starting to see why everyone had chosen the costumes they had... none of them were acting particularly out of character for their normal lives. But... didn't that defeat the purpose of the costume party?  
  
Humans were so strange.  
  
"It was supposed to be better." Solace pulled an exaggerated pout, but instead of the trembling tears that Smith was reasonably sure were supposed to flow, she merely rolled her eyes.   
  
"Too many teenagers," Cassie said with all the authority of one of that group.  
  
"Cassie, hon... isn't that a bit hypocritical?"  
  
"Of course not. I'm the only one here qualified to make that judgment."   
  
They all chuckled. Smith allowed himself to crack a smile.   
  
"Who invited the beer brigade, anyway?" Solace rolled her eyes over in the direction of a number of men in their mid thirties who appeared to be flirting with the high school girls. "Isn't that moderately illegal?"  
  
"Just a bit."  
  
Cassie looked as though she were going to be sick.  
  
"Don't think about it too much..." Solace advised, dropping character entirely and pulling an arm around the younger girl's shoulders. "Come on, let's go bother your dad."   
  
They left Smith and Julian to themselves which, although somewhat disconcerting, was better than being left to his own devices. Smith glanced over at Julian. "Her father?"  
  
"Yeah.... Richard comes to these events partially to watch over Cassie and partially because the rest of us are nagging him to get in touch with his inner... something. I don't know, but he's been extraordinarily uptight lately."  
  
Smith arched an eyebrow. "Shouldn't that be left up to him?"  
  
"Not when Cassie's starting to suffer for it. She's a teenager, she needs her father now possibly more than she ever will in her life."  
  
The Agent couldn't argue with that. He'd seen, heard, read enough about the behavior of unsupervised and (at least from their point of view) unloved teenagers to know what a disaster the Cassie-and-her-father debacle could possibly be. And it didn't help that there was something... faintly wrong... with Richard's code. "Has he been examined, medically?"  
  
Julian blinked. "You mean..." he paused, looking a little worried. "I don't think anyone's thought of that, no. You think he could be sick?"  
  
"It is a possibility, and would explain any radical changes in behavior." Smith took a breath. He wasn't entirely sure he wanted to say this in a room full of crowded people at what was supposed to be a felicitous event.   
  
"What's that look?"  
  
"What look?"  
  
Julian's eyes narrowed. "That look. The look that says you've thought of something but you're not sure you want to say it..."  
  
Perceptive human. "The majority of medical causes for radical behavior changes are either very noticeable... or ultimately fatal. Brain tumor, virus..."  
  
Julian nodded, looking sick. "I get it, I get it. And you're right, I hadn't thought about that. If that's true..." he sighed heavily. Smith watched him with caution and detachment. "I don't know. I guess we'd better try and get him to go in for a physical or psychiatric evaluation soon, before whatever it is that's going on gets any worse."  
  
Smith nodded slowly, not sure what else to say.   
  
"So..." Julian cleared his throat, clearly changing the subject. "How are things going between you and Solace?"  
  
The Agent gaped. "We're not involved..." too quickly. Far too quickly, he knew the man must think he was denying something, hiding something...  
  
He laughed and shook his head. "Not that way. It's none of my business who Sol gets involved with ... or not... until she tells me. I mean, she's told me a lot about you..." his face turned serious. "Including what happened in the park. Are you two dealing with it okay?"  
  
Oh. "I... don't know. There was a fight..." he trailed off.   
  
Julian nodded, much to the Agent's surprise. "Not really surprising. That kind of thing ... it tends to turn a person's world upside down. Especially if it happens in a place or from a person where the victim used to feel safe, all of a sudden it's like everything's turned upside down and made sinister. Because one thing that used to give a feeling of security is suddenly made terrifying, the victim questions everything that used to be safe... including friends, family." Bitterness laced through his voice and was gone. "Frankly, I'm surprised she's handling it so well."  
  
Quiet, calm. "You sound as though you know."  
  
"It's hard. They say one in every four women is a rape victim, but they don't say anything about the stats for men. Solace and I both know a number of people, or friends of friends... I hand out numbers and people to see at the firm, and she runs weekly help notices in the magazine... you're not alone, that sort of thing. Sometimes it helps, a little."  
  
Smith couldn't find anything to say to that. He had observed humans at their day to day lives, and only over the past few weeks was he starting to realize that he had barely scratched the surface. Even the philosophical, abstract conversations with Solace were starting to take on practical meaning. There was a moment of drowning, of feeling as though the entire Matrix was trying to hurl itself down his throat. Julian watched, concern all over his face. Smith took a deep breath. Adjust. He had to adjust. His mind felt fogged over.  
  
"I can't believe you're trying this, again, here..."   
  
Both men turned around sharply at the sound of the woman's voice, low but still tinged with anger. Even in her costume Solace looked as though she might bite the head off of the man she was speaking to. The people around them were moving further back, giving them a three foot berth, no small feat in the middle of the mall.   
  
"What is going on?"   
  
Julian didn't respond. Smith turned around, saw the man blanching even under the white-face.   
  
"What is going on?"   
  
"... damn... I didn't think we'd see him again....oh, Solace, baby, don't do anything stupid..."  
  
"Julian!"  
  
The man looked over at him. "That's her ex-husband."  
  
Time froze. Everyone in the store blurred to a stop. Smith went back over his conversations with Solace carefully, searching for any hint, any possible even backhanded mention of an ex-husband. She had mentioned an old boyfriend once, but that was it. Ex-husband? When had this happened? When he hadn't been looking? And what in the name of...  
  
Time resumed.  
  
"... need you, don't you understand that? She needs you."  
  
She?  
  
" ...not my problem. You got yourself into it, and now you're just going to have to get yourself out." She turned to go. Any crowd around the two had dissolved, and Richard was standing on the edges of the carefully not-watching throng with his arms protectively around his daughter.   
  
The man... whoever he was... grabbed Solace's arm. "Sol..."  
  
Solace whirled, throwing the man's arm off with more violence than was necessary. "Don't start with me, Kerr. Not here, not now, not ever again. Whatever you thought I owed you, think again. And whoever you knocked up after the divorce..." she snapped the word out like a bullet, "You take care of your own children and don't come crying to me."  
  
Julian and Smith flanked her in identical swift motions. Kerr looked up at them with the ugly stare of the not-quite-stable. "Brought your bodyguards this time?"  
  
Solace's return smirk was more grimace than grin. "You have no idea."   
  
"I think you'd better go, Desmond..." Julian said quietly.   
  
"Yes, I think I better had." The man turned to go, then stopped and stared at Smith. Time seemed to freeze again as the Agent had the uncanny feeling that the man knew exactly what he was, and exactly what was going on.   
  
Time resumed.  
  
The man left. Solace slumped a little bit, and the crowd started to flow more normally again, sensing that the drama had dissipated. Julian touched her shoulder, but she shook it off. Smith didn't try. "Shall we go?" He was getting thoroughly sick of the party anyway.   
  
"Yeah..." Solace took a deep breath. "Yeah. I'll talk to you later, Julian, okay?"   
  
The man nodded. Something bizarre and complex passed through them, then to Richard and Cassie as Julian glanced over. Smith thought briefly of trying to decipher it, and then decided that getting out of the damn building was more important. He shadowed her the whole way out like some sort of forbidding protector. Perfectly in character too, he thought bitterly.  
  
He was never getting dressed up in costume again.  
  
The air outside was clear, fresh, and blessedly free of the scent of so many humans. Smith closed his eyes and took a second to calm himself. He hadn't realized how utterly furious he had been. Solace stood beside him, not moving, locked in her own cycle of emotions. He would wait until they both settled down. She wasn't going anywhere, and he could question her later. Or just... well, he didn't know what else to do. "Do you want to talk about it?"  
  
"No."  
  
Right then. Smith shook his head, leading the way out to the car. Humans were so strange. 


	25. Day Thirty Eight

Magazine offices were busier than he had expected, and the lobby had been deceptively calm. A nice enough young woman with one eye on her textbook (Differential Equations, Smith noted out of the corner of his eye) had directed him to the correct floor and room, but the second he'd stepped out of the elevator he'd been greeted with a riot of sound and movement. He barely avoided crashing into a young man running down the hall with a sheaf of papers in hand, dodged a woman who walked calmly by with her eyes on the paper in front of her, and somehow made it down the hallway to her offices.   
  
Solace, much to his amusement, was shouting into a phone. "It's called Freedom of the Press, you unmitigated prick! Look it up! Bill of Rights?" The last few words had been spoken to a dial tone, he could hear it even from the doorway. A couple other writers looked up at her and shook their heads in sympathy.   
  
"Excuse me..." a young man squeezed past Smith into the room, paused, and looked over at him. "Are you here for someone in particular?"   
  
"Yes, as a matter of fact..." he looked over at Solace.  
  
"Ah. Sol!" She looked over, saw Smith... and blushed, inexplicably. "You've got a guest."   
  
Smirks, snickers, and questioning glances all around. The Agent walked through the mass of too-curious humans, outwardly unperturbed.   
  
"Hi..." she sighed quietly. "Sorry. Kerr asked Robinett where I was last night, so naturally the whole office knows. At a guess they assume you're the reason he went off like a firecracker last night."  
  
Well, that made sense. The endless giggling was still aggravating, though. "I thought I would stop by and make sure you were all right..." he said slowly, aware that that wasn't helping the situation anyway. "And ask you to lunch, if you didn't have anything else to do."  
  
She'd started shuffling papers into a stack on the desk, and paused when he mentioned lunch, looking up. "You know... That'd probably be good... I actually forgot to eat breakfast today, so..." She reached in front of her, unplugging the small box laptop from her desk. "Mike! I'm going to finish working out of my home today... I'll e-mail you the articles tonight."   
  
The man at the end of the room nodded... Mike Robinett, or so his nameplate said. "Grist for the rumor mill?"  
  
Solace smirked. It took her perhaps a minute to pack up. "You wish. Nothing's happening, guys! Nothing to see here, you can go about your business."  
  
There was a low chuckle around the room and then, mercifully, everyone turned their attention back to their work. Smith was able to escort her out of the room without further comment.   
  
"Don't mind them..." she sighed, rolling her eyes affectionately at the now-closed door. "I think they were worried about me, and they're just being silly."  
  
He thought back to the previous night, and what he had discovered about Kerr after she had gone to bed. "With good reason. I... discovered something about your ex-husband."  
  
Solace froze. "You ran a background check?"  
  
Smith nodded carefully. She looked tense, worried, scared. Did she know? The way her eyes were fixed on his face, her body unmoving, seemed to indicate that she did. "He is a suspect in several small-scale terrorist attacks. He also has no recent records, driver's license or credit card accounts, which would indicate that he is keeping a low profile."  
  
Solace exhaled slowly, and then she began to shake. "Oh God."  
  
He touched her shoulder. She looked terrified. "You didn't know?"  
  
"That stupid, stupid man..." she shook her head. "No. No, I didn't know, but I'm glad you found out... when you did. Should I report him... did you report him to the police?"   
  
Smith took a deep breath. This would be the hard part. "Unfortunately, there is no proof that he is actually responsible for the attacks, and he is already under as much observation as is permitted by law. He did nothing illegal, despite the objectionable nature of his presence. There was nothing I could report him for. I did make his presence in the city known, so he may be under more strict surveillance."  
  
They stood in the hallway so long that people started to move around them as though they were statuary. He watched her expressions slowly change from terror, to a more subdued fear, to anger, to sadness, and finally to quiet resignation. She nodded. "All right." Deep breath. "All right. Okay, so there's nothing we can do?"  
  
"I'm afraid not."  
  
Another deep breath. "Okay. Then, let's go to lunch."  
  
He shadowed her out, walking just barely behind her. He told himself it was in case she fainted, turned, changed her mind, fell. Deeper down, though, logic told him that it was purely an emotional response to her distress. The knowledge mingled with the reflexive self hatred for feeling emotions, wants and desires, and the hatred for Neo, who had changed him so intrinsically. The feelings, the softer thoughts that came creeping in day by day, they were coming faster and in greater numbers now. It was getting harder and harder to resist.   
  
"Did you have some place in mind?" Solace's voice, tight with false cheer, broke through his musing. But he actually did have some place in mind.   
  
"It's a surprise..." he said, and then silently cursed himself for saying so. "Jump in."  
  
She smoothed her hands over the sides of the seat on the way, shaking her head. "I'm never going to get over this car... it's just... so..."   
  
He had to chuckle. She was ... almost ... acting like a child at Christmas. "Not what you had expected?"  
  
"Not at all. It's beautiful."  
  
"I enjoy beautiful things..." he said, then immediately wished he could take it back. He just knew she was going to interpret it in all the wrong ways.  
  
"Indeed." She glanced sideways at him, smiling just a little bit. His hands tensed and then smoothed out on the steering wheel. She knew he hadn't meant it that way, and she also knew he had panicked a little when he'd realized what he'd said, and was letting him know that she understood. Wonderful woman.  
  
There were those thoughts again. At least he didn't have to worry about being discovered; he couldn't be deleted twice. He pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant, still distracted.   
  
"La Roma?"  
  
He could tell straight away by her inquisitive tone of voice that she didn't have any idea what the restaurant was. A little smirk forced its way onto his face. "You'll see."  
  
He took her arm like a gentleman to escort her inside. Which in fact consisted of a hollow square lined with tables, the back section containing the kitchen. An obsequious greeter showed them to their 'garden' table, as Smith requested. Solace gave him that inquisitive look again but didn't ask.   
  
The widening of her eyes and her slowly ecstatic expression when they emerged in open daylight again was worth it. The restaurant had decided to simulate the best of the Italian cafes with a huge open air dining area, ornate wire tables, vines hanging artfully... it was everything he'd seen once in Venice, but without the persistent smell of sewage. He neatly bypassed the waiter and pulled her chair out for her to seat, for once behaving with grace, poise, and style. There was nary a hint of his usual grumpiness.   
  
And the worst part about it was, if put to the question he couldn't have said what had made him do all this. It would have been a perfectly reasonable thing for a human to do... but he wasn't. The look on her face somehow made it all worth it, and he didn't understand that either. It was aggravating.   
  
"How is it that I've never heard of this place before?" she asked with undisguised wonder as she looked around. This time the grin on his face was smug; any second now the owner's cousin, who was an inveterate matchmaker, would show up with his violin.   
  
"It caters to a very specific sort of clientele, and the owner doesn't advertise. Most of his custom is word-of-mouth. He immigrated over here with his father, who started the restaurant, decades ago."   
  
She scanned the menu, looking for something she could read. "Oh my... I don't speak Italian!"   
  
He chuckled. "Look underneath."  
  
"Oh."  
  
Brief pause.  
  
"I'm not ordering spaghetti. This place is too Lady and the Tramp for me..."   
  
Cognitive dissonance. His thoughts reformed, and his eyes widened in a moment of panic as he realized what she was talking about. She looked up and caught his gaze, held it, both of them frozen. For one split second...  
  
"Don't you ever watch Disney?" she smiled. The moment passed. He slumped a fraction of an inch in his chair, relieved.  
  
"Not in a very long time."  
  
"Pity." She was smiling more, at any rate. She seemed to be in better spirits. "So, what do you recommend?"  
  
They settled down to haggling over who would order what, as she had evidently decided that they would order something different each so she could sample a little of everything. She demurred on the wine, citing her need to go back home and work, but she accepted the Italian soda as a reasonable thing to try. When the waiter finally returned (and Smith saw that he had been watching them discreetly from a corner) they were ready.   
  
"So how did you discover this place?" she wanted to know. It was actually a reasonable question for which he actually had an answer.   
  
"We apprehended a suspect here... he thought the unique architecture would protect him at least long enough to make further plans." He took a sip of water, uncomfortable with the answer he had chosen. "At any rate, several of us took note of this place and came here in later days."  
  
"It's beautiful..." She didn't move her head and yet she couldn't stop looking around; her eyes traveled over the trellis, the walls, up to the open sky, back down to the table.   
  
"It seemed warranted after the events of last night."  
  
Her eyes locked with his, curious. "Oh?"  
  
"To take your mind off of ... things"  
  
"Ah." She looked down. Perhaps neither of them were comfortable with the intimacy of the situation.   
  
Or perhaps not. She reached across the table and took his hand in hers. Her skin was soft, cool. She was moving easily, graceful and relaxed, as though the past twenty four hours had ceased to exist when she stepped into the restaurant. Was it that easy for her? Her fingers twitched, as though she wanted to draw them over his hand but was afraid to. It all seemed very surreal. He stared down at their hands and then over at her. She was watching him, carefully expressionless.   
  
Then she smiled, and pulled her hand back. "Thank you." 


	26. Day Thirty Nine

A/N: 100 Reviews! Yay! Thank you to all my beloved readers, all you who've stuck through this with me. I couldn't have done it without you.  
  
I'm lagging behind a bit in my usual pace because, while I have the entire story generally plotted out, I'm actually running out of things for Smith and Sol to do between big events. So, to my dear readers, I ask you for suggestions! What kinds of silly little things do you want to see them doing day to day? Little one day adventures, like hiding out from the rain in the coffee shop or singing in the park with her friends. I'm sure you all have suggestions, and I'd love to hear some of them!  
  
But for now, on with the show...  
  
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He really needed to find something with which to occupy his days that didn't involve waiting for Solace to show up in the park. It seemed forever until she decided to take a lunch break, and then forever again until she actually made it to their clearing. Joe had been giving him sly looks on the side, knowing looks that Smith wasn't sure he liked. It was as though the crazy man had plans for Smith and Solace, plans that didn't include either of them actually knowing what was in store for them. Perhaps it was a quirk of his programming, but Smith definitely favored having a good idea of what was coming rather than being surprised.   
  
He watched, relieved, as she crossed the street and walked sedately over to his bench. And it had been... how long? Thirty nine days since their first meeting. A long time to become accustomed to the presence of a human. Not just any human, not 'a' human. Solace.  
  
He scowled slightly.  
  
"Rachel had me doing the new-kid tour all morning," she said by way of explanation and apology. "Mike's apparently hired some new blood, and Rache isn't too happy about it."   
  
She reached out and took his hand without a second thought as they turned to walk down one of their usual paths. .Her fingers were warm, laced through his, natural and easy. It was becoming too comfortable. Why?  
  
"Penny for your thoughts?"  
  
He temporized with part of the truth. "I am... wondering what to do with myself, now."  
  
"With all the free time?" she smiled. "I could wish I had so much free time. Did you have any hobbies?"  
  
He smiled without humor at the thought of an Agent with hobbies. "No..."  
  
She either didn't notice or didn't pay attention to the sickly grin on his face. "Well, now would be a good time to find some. Volunteer work, maybe... I'm not sure where but there has to be someplace that could use your talents..." He gave a little laugh, derision and hysteria mingled, and she squeezed his hand gently ... a gesture of concern? Probably. "We'll figure something out."  
  
"I hope so," he muttered, much less sanguine about his prospects than she.   
  
And she must have been able to hear it in his voice, because she stopped and turned around, effectively preventing him from walking on as well. One hand reached up to stroke his hair, so soft a touch that he barely felt it. His breathing slowed, calmed.   
  
"We'll figure something out," she repeated, her voice low, quiet, and yet forceful. "There are hundreds of thousands of places that all need volunteers. There are any number of hobbies you could try, at least some of which you would probably enjoy. There's a whole world out there to explore, to see. We'll find you something to occupy your time... if you want to be useful, we can do that. If you want to see and do new things, we can do that too."  
  
It was, he discovered then, annoyingly hard to stare down her overwhelming optimism. More so because she was right than because she was forceful; there were still a number of ways he could be useful, depending on how much he dared risk the Agents coming down on him and trying to delete him. "Remember, I cannot operate..."  
  
"On their radar, I know." Her hand slid down over his cheek, and he flinched. She either didn't notice or ignored it. "It'll be okay. You're not useless, and you're not rudderless. Your work may have been your life at one point, but it doesn't have to be anymore."  
  
Smith stared at her. It was perceptive of her, and narrowly pierced the heart of the matter. He was an Agent, created to enforce the Matrix and prevent the population at large from discovering and perhaps rebelling, and now that he was stripped of that status he had effectively been stripped of all purpose. There was no longer any reason for him to exist, and though something in him rebelled at the thought of being deleted, he didn't understand why. He didn't understand what was making him stay and therefore had nothing to fill the suddenly gaping void in his being. But how did a human understand something like that?  
  
"What now?" he asked after a long silence. His voice was raspy, harsh, as though from disuse.   
  
"We can keep walking," she said, her voice slow and careful. It almost seemed as though she was afraid he would break if she handled him too roughly. It was both infuriating and welcome. "We can have our usual walk through the park. Or we can try and figure out what to do. It's up to you."  
  
There was a long silence. Time spun out, and he seemed to have forever to make his choice. Maybe he did; for all he knew she was perfectly prepared to spend the rest of eternity standing there waiting for him to decide. She had certainly given that impression. She hadn't moved an inch.   
  
What did he want? On the one hand, she had certainly shown acute comprehension of the problem. He wasn't very hopeful that she would be able to come up with a viable solution, but there was always the chance. On the other hand... did he really want to think about this right now? Did he really want to think about it at all? Maybe it was easier just to give into apathy, not think about it, just spend the rest of his days... doing what? Wandering around a park? Unacceptable. But then, he would have to come up with something else to do, something else to be. He couldn't be an ex-Agent for the rest of his existence...  
  
She was still standing there, frozen.   
  
"Lets walk..." He stepped around her, and she turned and came with him, not letting go of his hand. "We can discuss it as we go along."  
  
"Walking and talking. I can live with that."   
  
He glanced over at her sharply, but there was not a hint of smile or humor. If she was poking fun at him she was doing it very delicately.   
  
"Do you have any idea what you want to do? Even in a general sense... travel the world, raise money for some charity, star in a movie..."   
  
He repressed a shudder at that last idea. That was by far and away more publicity than he would be able to deal with. "I don't have enough sympathy for the human race to engage in volunteer work," he said finally. It was a pared-down version of the truth.  
  
Solace chuckled. "I guess I can see your point, even if it's an attitude I try not to share. All right, how about travel? See the world? There are ways that you can tour Europe on a very modest budget... you could spend several months abroad. You might even figure out what you want to do with the rest of your life over there."   
  
The Agent glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, intrigued by the dispassionate tone in her voice. "Is that what you recommend?"  
  
She wouldn't look at him, although she kept walking beside him, hand in hand. "There's certainly enough to do in Europe... enough to occupy anyone for a year at least. If you're feeling at loose ends, it'd be a good place to spend some time. Go to the theatre, walk along the beaches, that sort of thing."  
  
"Yes. But, what do you think?"  
  
No response. They kept walking, and Smith didn't press the issue.   
  
"We could ask Julian or Richard if they know of anything you could do... or Rain or Lily. I don't know if they're still looking for more security at the school where Rain teaches... But she might know of a place where they are. It's always hard to find good personnel to work at schools." Solace rushed past the travel plans, which made Smith cock a curious eyebrow at her.   
  
"Perhaps..." The idea of working with small children, tiny humans... he couldn't say it was appealing. On the other hand the prospect of getting to know some of Solace's other friends was intriguing. His knowledge of them was almost entirely confined to their names, occupations, and one or two trivial facts. Actually meeting them... "How do you find such oddly named friends in the first place?"  
  
She chuckled. "Holdover from the sixties and seventies... more the sixties... when everyone was naming themselves silly things like Moonchild or Sunflower. Most of my friends either have parents who were the real die-hard hippies, or they're going along with the new age pagan phenomenon that says you have to have a magical name," she drew air quotes around the phrase, rolling her eyes good-naturedly. "Personally, if I had a magical name, I wouldn't tell anyone."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Names have power over things. You don't have any choice in the name you're given at birth, but if you're picking a magical name it should be something that is very much a part of you. If you give that to someone else, you're giving them power over you. It's one of the oldest forms of magic in myth and legend."  
  
Smith thought over some of the names that the Matrix had dubbed its denizens. Largely functional, but he could certainly understand where the correlation and conclusion might be drawn. The Architect, the Guardians, the Keymaker, even the Agents. Even that damned arrogant AI in his tower of dark glass and champagne had been named appropriate to his function.   
  
"I suppose that makes sense..." he said after a while.   
  
"Lily ... well, Lily is her real name. And it sort of suits her, she has that willowy build and the pale complexion. Rain's real name is Michele Lansford, and Star's real name is Jenny Donovan. In Star's case, I think she just wanted something a little more flashy."  
  
Smith shook his head, chuckling. Solace glanced over at him, startled but pleased, underscoring the oddity of the Agent AI being amused at something so simple as a young woman's choice of names. He let the chuckle die, uncomfortable.  
  
"Do any of these ideas sound like fun?"  
  
"Fun?" For a second the word didn't make sense, even in context.  
  
"Enjoyable? Does anything sound like something you would want to do?"  
  
He was silent for a long while, thinking. He wondered if other exiles had to go through the same thing, if there was maybe some sort of bizarre AI support group. Exiles Anonymous. Hello, my name is Smith, I was formerly an Agent of the System. Hello Smith. The thought actually made him laugh out loud, and it wasn't until Solace stopped him in his tracks and bodily turned him to face her that he realized he was doing a damn good imitation of hysteria.   
  
"Sorry..." he sighed. Took a deep breath, tried to get a grip. His logic, his rationality seemed to be sliding further and further away. Maybe he should be deleted. "I was just thinking of the possibility that there might be some sort of clandestine support group for others in my situation."  
  
"Other government employees of top secret branch organizations who have been sacked but not yet... er..." she trailed off, and smiled weakly. "It's possible. It might even be worth looking into, and you'd know where to start on that more than I would."  
  
He blinked at her. "You're serious?"  
  
"Dead serious, if you'll pardon the phrasing. If it happened to you, then it's just that much more likely that it might have happened to someone else. And if it happened to someone else..." she shrugged. "You see what I mean? And they would probably be able to help you more than I could, I'm just shooting in the dark here."  
  
The Agent stared at the woman who, without knowing it, had given him his solution. It really was the obvious thing to do, even if he couldn't think of anyone offhand who he actually wanted to talk to. Still, there had to be more out there, and perhaps one of them would be willing to help, as long as he made sure not to phrase it in that way. He knew exactly where to start, too: in that damned tower. The foppish excuse for an AI kept himself surrounded by Exiles. One of them would surely have at least some idea of what the protocol was for this situation.   
  
The burden of choice being lifted from him was like being born again, like ecstasy, like every overwhelming human emotion he had never thought to feel. He grabbed Solace by the shoulders and would have hugged her had she not let out a startled yelp and stared at him as though he'd gone mad.   
  
"Solace, you are a brilliant woman," he told her gravely, brushing his lips across her forehead in the barest imitation of a kiss. A suitable gesture of gratitude given their relationship and their history together, and in light of her very good advice, he told himself. He even thought he might have convinced himself it was true. She smiled a little, relaxing slowly as he took her hand again and they walked on with no further startling interruptions.  
  
"So... what do you want to do for the rest of today?"  
  
"Dance." He said it gravely, but he pulled her into a spinning whirl, the opening of a tango he had seen performed once at the theatre. He was giving into whimsy, and he knew it, but for a little while he decided he was beyond caring. The System had rejected him, he was no longer an Agent, so why exactly did he have to behave like one? There was no logical reason. And one afternoon dancing in the park was a suitable reward for her efforts and would not result in him becoming as irrational and erratic as a human. One dance would not, as the saying went, corrupt him.   
  
"Dance?" She laughed with clear delight, picking up on his moves gracefully if not always correctly and somehow managing to fumble her way around the footpath.   
  
"Of course. It is a beautiful day for it, is it not?"  
  
She looked up at the sky, around the sun-dappled trees, the grass, the birds and the squirrels that chattered irritably at the intruders onto their grounds. She looked back at him, smiling with what he was starting to realize was equal relief at having solved their most difficult problem. Their problem? Perhaps it had been.   
  
"Of course it is."   
  
And so they danced. 


	27. Tank

"Hey..."  
  
It was uncanny. They'd spent so much time together since she'd come on board the ship, just days after Neo's first visit to Zion, that he had started to pick up on her when she entered the room, no matter how quietly she entered it.  
  
"Hey."  
  
Solace sat down in one of the chairs, straddling in it, not laying down or making any move to jack in. Tank turned around and watched her, no need to watch the screens if she wasn't going to be in the Matrix. He waited politely for her to start up some topic of conversation, simply watched her when she said nothing. Over the past three months they had grown closer in a sort of working rapport, which mitigated most of the discomfort in the silence that now pervaded the room. Most, but not all.  
  
"Are you okay?" he asked finally.  
  
She sighed and leaned back in the chair, closing her eyes. "Sort of."  
  
Tank let it stand there for a while, turning instead to his computer monitors and pretending to scan Agent activity, see if there was anything interesting in the area. They hadn't had a run-in for a little while, but they weren't yet overdue for a squidee or an Agent, so he wasn't too worried.   
  
She still wasn't talking, and she hadn't fallen asleep. He sighed. "Sol... what's up? Really. You and Smith have a fight or something?" A hint of a smile turned up the corners of his lips. "Lover's quarrel."  
  
"Hey, we haven't..." she sat up, opened her eyes, and then realized what Tank had tricked her into implying. "Does everyone on this damn ship know what's going on, or is it just me?"   
  
He chuckled. "It's just you. At least, I don't know who else you've told. You unplugged people seem to forget that the operators are always... well, almost always watching. You guys can't do much without one of us seeing what's going on. I've tried not to look in on the more private parts of what you guys have been doing, but..." he shrugged a little self-consciously, uncomfortable with the thought of being a voyeur.  
  
Solace lay back and thought about it for several moments. Finally she sighed. "So how long have you known?"  
  
"Longer than you, from the way you've been acting," he chuckled, and she rolled her eyes at him indignantly.  
  
"Oh, come on."  
  
"No, really. You think I haven't been watching you two all this time and not noticed? Tell me, were you fighting it, or was it just denial?"  
  
She sighed. "A little of both. I don't know."   
  
"Uh-huh."  
  
"Dammit, it's supposed to be impossible! Physically impossible!"   
  
"Sol, honey, emotions don't have anything to do with what's physically possible or not. They just happen. Even to Ais, apparently."  
  
She snorted and curled up on her side, her back to him. "Yeah. Yeah, my experiment was a resounding success."  
  
"Then why don't you sound too happy about it?"  
  
She flipped over, lay there quietly for a minute. "I don't know what to do. It's not like this is anything I can ask someone else about... it's not like anyone else has been in this situation before."  
  
"What, in love?"  
  
"No!" It was half a scream, half a wail. She must have worried that someone had heard her, because she didn't say anything for several minutes and then when she began to speak again, she did so in a much quieter voice. "No. Not just in love, in love with an Agent. A ... well, a ... particularly... psychotic Agent. A self-admitted obsessive Agent. And one who's been kicked out of the system, no less."   
  
Tank sighed, walked over and knelt down next to her. "You know, you really should stop focusing on the whole Agent part. It's just not healthy."  
  
She smiled weakly. "It's not healthy to be in love with an Agent either. I don't know..."  
  
"Why you bother?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
Another sigh. He took her hand in his and squeezed it gently. "Sol, honey, you've got to stop obsessing over the Agent thing. You've proved your experiment right and you don't even know it."  
  
She blinked. "What are you talking about? I know..."  
  
He shook his head. "No, you don't... well, you know but you don't see. Your experiment is a success. The Agents have feelings, they have emotions, they're not that different from us. That's what you're in love with, honey. You're in love with Smith, you're not in love with an Agent. What he is doesn't matter, it's who he is."  
  
She stared at him with eyes that were wide and more frightened than he would have expected. It was as though the thought that she could be right, or at least not as psychologically disturbed as she wanted to believe she was, terrified her. It was almost as though she didn't want to be in love with the elusive Agent Smith, and he couldn't really blame her. He wouldn't want to pioneer that kind of revolution either, not in the culture into which she had been thrown and by which she had been assimilated.   
  
"But..."  
  
Tank sighed. She could be more stubborn than Trinity sometimes. "Do you love him?"  
  
Solace looked down, twisting the ends of her hair in her fingers. "Yes."  
  
He squeezed her hand again. "Do you think he loves you?"  
  
She bit her lip and was silent. It was, after all, the harder question. "I don't know."  
  
Tank smiled gently. "Might want to talk to him about it, then."  
  
She smiled, still weakly, but starting to relax. "How the hell did you get to be so smart?" she teased, squeezing his hand back to show that she was trying to be more at ease with herself, to come to terms with the events of the past three months.  
  
"A long life." He grinned, but something must have shown in his voice. She sat up.  
  
"Tank?"  
  
He grimaced. "It's nothing."  
  
She wasn't buying it, which he had rather expected. If she was perceptive enough to detect and deal with emotions in Agent Smith, she was undoubtedly perceptive enough to be able to tell that something was wrong with him. "Nothing my cute little butt. What's going on?" Pause. Two plus two... where there was smoke... she made the connection. "You've been avoiding the others almost as much as I have."  
  
He shrugged. "You're not the only one who's got a secret, I guess." Hoping she would leave it at that.  
  
She frowned. "May I ask?"  
  
"Sure..." he sighed. At least she had asked first. Sort of.  
  
"What kind of a secret?"  
  
"It's not..." Deep breath. "Not nearly as happy as yours." Easier to show than tell, he supposed. The shirt peeled away from his skin, taking dried blood and dead skin with it. Not as much as it had, which was both a bad and a good sign. She gasped.  
  
"Oh my god..." Her fingers reached out almost of their own accord and traced the angry red lines, so dark they were purplish black, that showed out in stark relief on his skin. The burn on his side, still clotting and breaking and re-clotting in the middle, was the nexus point. The lines were tracing down his legs by now, and around his waist to his back. It was a miracle they had taken as long as they had to reach his heart. He'd felt himself growing weaker by the day, and although he'd never really thought about it before he was suddenly glad he didn't have to go into the Matrix, couldn't have even if he'd wanted to. His time was almost up, and he knew it.   
  
"Been like that ever since..." Their hands clenched around each other. Neither of them wanted to talk about that day.   
  
"Blood poisoning?"  
  
He nodded. "Slow but sure. I talked to some of the medics in Zion the last time we were there, but no one had anything for it... not this much, this quick. It started fast and... I don't know. I've hung in there as long as I could..." his voice started to crack, despite his best efforts, "But I don't think it's going to be much longer."  
  
"Oh god..." she reached around gingerly to hug him as he pulled his shirt back down, hiding the wounds even though there was no point. "Tank... I'm so sorry."  
  
"It'll be okay," he murmured, meaningless platitudes that even he knew were cold comfort. "I've had a while to come to terms with it."  
  
Solace leaned back and stared at him. "And you haven't told anyone?"  
  
"They'd just make a fuss, make a bigger deal than I can handle right now. I've taken care of just about everything... Cass and Zee will be okay. And you'll get a good operator when I finally kick it..."  
  
She smiled gently. "Not as wise as you, though. I'll have to muddle through this whole messy business on my own. You have to wait at least till I've figured out what to do. I won't let you go until then." Her voice was full of childlike stubbornness, enthusiasm, caring, but her eyes were serious and worried. He smiled, trying to reassure her with an ease he didn't feel.   
  
"Don't worry. I'm not going anywhere till I see you safely settled down with your Agent Smith." He gave her a brotherly kiss on the nose, as he'd done to Zee when she was small. His mind flickered back to those days, missing them with a sudden intensity that left tears in his eyes.   
  
Solace smiled, but it was tremulous, and he could see her blue-green eyes watering too. "You better not. You're going to have to be best man, 'cause the rest of everyone's going to have a heart attack."  
  
"What about other Agents? Shouldn't Smith get to pick the best man?" He managed to say it with a straight face, although the idea was causing hysterical giggles to bubble up inside him.   
  
"I guess. D'you think Trinity would look good in pink?" Solace blinked owlishly at him. "I was thinking about having peach and pink for my bridesmaids."  
  
They stared at each other for a second, pondering the ludicrous idea, and then burst into giggles. The giggles spiraled up into hysterical laughter, until they were collapsed in each others arms with tears of mirth rather than sadness leaking from their eyes. The simple human contact, as often as they had the opportunity for it in the past few days... few months... was somehow reassuring. The lack of any ties, any bonds or obligations except the ones they took willingly on themselves, was a relief. They laughed until they could laugh no more, and then they cried until the tears were gone. For a moment, at least, they could share secrets, and be comforted by them. 


	28. Day Forty

The beat was loud, and the bass could be felt twenty feet outside the club. There were the usual clusters of people outside, smoking or talking or just cooling off from the heat of over two hundred bodies packed into one small place. Security stood outside front and stage doors, dressed in black and looking forbidding. The headliners were advertised in giant red-on-white letters beneath the club logo, Warehouse.   
  
Solace grinned, straightened her baby-doll FuturePerfect tour t-shirt, and proudly presented her ticket. The concert wouldn't start for an hour and a half yet, but she wanted to make sure she could find her friends in the crowd.  
  
The doorman took her ticket, patted her down, stamped her hand and nodded her in all without changing expression. She had never been here regularly enough to know him, but from what Neil had said his name was Joe and he had a strange habit of package-checking guys without warning. The bartender on duty she did know from some of the other parties, and she gave him a nod as she passed him, passed the DeeJay, and moved on over to the cluster of familiar faces towards the back.   
  
"What's the good word?"  
  
"The word of the evening is... Ciaaaaoooo..." Neil rolled the word around in his mouth in true Izzardian fashion, grinning. Three to five wadded up napkins hit him in the head.   
  
"No more Comedy Central for you. Julian, how's it hanging."  
  
"Low and to the left." Six napkins. "What are you up to, Sol?"  
  
"About five foot nine." Only three napkins for her. She slid into the booth, over Neil's lap, between him and Samantha. "How are things going? I see I missed the opening act..."  
  
"You missed the first opening act. Blumchard's on next, and then VNV..." The other three broke into a chant at the mention of the band. "After that." Now Julian was more mouthing the words than actually talking, since Sol couldn't hear him anyway. "Assemblage was pretty good. You missed a good show. Did you bring your pet Squirrel?"  
  
"He's a Fed, Julian, and no, I didn't bring him. He's looking up Kerr, seems my darling ex-husband was involved in more than we ever figured him for."  
  
That cut a chill into the table and calmed the chanting. Neil dropped an arm around her shoulders and hugged her lightly. "Like what?"  
  
"Computer crime, hacking, internet terrorism, that sort of thing. Nothing really major, but Smith thinks they've linked him to some of the bigger groups, so they're keeping an eye on him. They can't charge him with anything yet, more's the pity, and they haven't been able to find any permanent address for him. They're still looking, though." Her eyes dropped and she trailed off, unwilling to build up the lie anymore.  
  
It was really starting to gall her that she couldn't tell them the truth. That she couldn't just tell them all what was going on, get them all unplugged. She knew everyone who was born in the Matrix and had lived in it long enough to make some good friends felt that way. Even so, each time she talked with them about things like her ex-husband, her so-called career, her family who didn't even know she existed anymore, she felt like she was lying. Doubly so, because she had to lie to Smith too, even though she knew exactly what he was.   
  
The worrying part about it, the dangerous aspect was that she was finding it more and more difficult to lie to Smith. It made things almost nerve-wracking. They could talk about anything... history, philosophy, music, literature... anything that didn't involve his so-called job or her past. Whenever anything came up that forced them to talk in euphamisms she found herself wanting more and more to just blurt out who and what she was, just tell him and get it over with. She wanted to tell him the truth, and she was starting to resent the lies between them. It was disturbing, both for the danger it represented and for the potential underlying reasons.   
  
I need a spirit who can touch my life. I need a voice to speak the truth. I need a soul who will be on my side. I need a hope I never knew.  
  
Music drifted in, out, around her mind as she tugged on her hair and knotted her skirt up, trying to figure out a solution to the sticky problem. If she told him, the experiment would be over. It bothered her just how much that didn't factor into her deliberations. If she told him, he would never trust her again, would hunt her down as avidly as he had the rest of the Resistance, possibly worse.   
  
"Hey..." Sam touched her arm, making her jump. "Sol? You okay, honey?"  
  
"Yeah..." she took a deep breath. "Yeah. I'm okay." Everyone was looking at her with varying degrees of concern, some with sympathy, some just with confusion.   
  
"Worried about your ex?" Neil asked, reaching over to squeeze her hand gently. He was one of the less confused more sympathetic ones, probably because (according to gossip) he had had dealings with a similarly psychotic ex-girlfriend and a kitchen knife.   
  
"A little. Also kind of worried about Smith. He wanted to try and set up a meeting with someone today, I think to see if he could get a job there..."   
  
She let her head droop onto Neil's shoulder, and they all relaxed. "Yeah..." Julian shook his head. "Being out of a job sucks, especially now. How long was he with that firm?"  
  
Blumchen was starting up, and they had to shout to be heard. Samantha and "I don't know... a long time. A very long time, probably a good twenty years..."  
  
"So, right out of college."  
  
Solace had to try not to giggle hysterically at the thought of Smith going as a student to a university or, worse, to a high school. "Yeah, pretty much."  
  
"And he worked with them for twenty years plus without a problem? He'll get another job quick. It'll be okay. Or he could probably just take what he's saved up and invest it and still do okay, the stock market isn't that bad, and he looks like he's been really good with his money. That car alone must have cost a packet, or he got it almost new."  
  
If only Julian knew. Solace shrugged, uncomfortable. "I don't know. The kind of things we do together don't really cost all that much... walking in the park, that kind of thing."  
  
Julian and Neil exchanged a glance that said volumes in some sort of masculine code Solace couldn't read.   
  
"What?"  
  
"Nothing..." they said together, and Solace rolled her eyes.  
  
"Nothing, my ass. I saw that look, that wasn't a nothing look, that was an obscurely male something the woman won't understand look. What are you two up to?"  
  
Neil smirked and kissed Solace on the forehead. "Nothing that should distract you from the wonderful concert we are about to enjoy. Go, secure us a place on the dance floor. We'll be out in a couple minutes."  
  
She did so, giving them speculative glances over her shoulder (and most of them with her tongue out). Blumchen had whipped up the dancers to a low-grade frenzy, but enterprising and probably single gentlemen elbowed her and Samantha a path up to the stage. Solace pushed all thoughts of Smith, Agents, the Matrix, and the Resistance to the back of her mind. It had been a long time since she'd been to a Zion revel, and even longer since she'd been to an real live... so to speak... concert. She dove into the rhythm with a vengeance, and cheered with the rest as an hour flew by in a second and VNV Nation took the stage.  
  
Stand your ground! This is what we're fighting for!  
  
Head swaying, feet pounding, body moving in almost hypnotic patterns, Solace sunk herself into the music to escape the nagging thoughts that were plaguing her almost constantly now. Around her she could feel the bodies of her friends, pressed tight together in the crowd. Neil slipped his arms around her occasionally and gave her a hug when he thought she wasn't paying attention. Julian kept a protective eye on her, Samantha gave her a wink and a nudge when a likely looking young man writhed past. She remembered dreaming of spending days like this when she was a child.   
  
Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war!  
  
It felt so good to cut loose again. To just let go and dance, and exhaust her body. She'd sleep well tonight, and probably ache tomorrow morning. Small price to pay, and she wasn't getting enough exercise anyway. Not that this was exercise, but she'd be dancing around the ship for days to come. And she didn't have to worry about a thing. There probably wasn't anything really for her to worry about anyways.  
  
"To the darkened skies, once more!" she sang along with the band, and the entire audience. "And ever onward!" If only they knew. But it didn't matter right now.  
  
Two hours of hot, sweaty, pulse-pounding fun later, she and her friends emerged into the night air that seemed so much colder by comparison. They shivered, huddling around each other for warmth as they struggled to pull on their jackets.   
  
"Jesus Jumping Christ..."  
  
"Man, I haven't had that much fun since..."  
  
Solace grinned up at Richard. "Even you had fun. Admit it!"  
  
He scowled, but everyone could tell it was more pretend, for the sake of form. "I admit nothing."  
  
Neil rolled his eyes and made quack gestures with his hand behind Richard's back as everyone laughed at the man's stubbornness. "Anyway, let's go find someplace to eat that's still open at this godawful hour. I'm starved!"   
  
"And thoroughly drunk." Samantha backed away. "Your breath smells like cough syrup."  
  
He shrugged. "Five shots of Jaegermeister will do that to you."  
  
Solace punched him lightly in the arm. "Sober up, you. You're the only one who knows where the all-night Perkins is around here. At least, you keep saying there's one. Personally, I think they're a myth."  
  
"Oh." Neil blinked. "Right."  
  
Julian looped his arm through Neil's and half supported, half dragged him to the car. Solace, Sam, and the rest of the crew followed chattering behind. Across the street, into the parking lot, and dodging the cars while avoiding turning Neil into road pizza.   
  
It would have been a lot easier if Smith hadn't been leaning on Sam's sedan.  
  
"You sure you two aren't... mmm?" she whispered.  
  
"Damn sure," Solace snapped back, nervous. "What are you doing here? I thought VNV wasn't your sort of deal..."  
  
"Not his bag, baby?" Neil burst into giggles, the Jaegermeister obviously taking effect.   
  
"I thought I might join you for dinner afterwards... if you had no particular plans?"   
  
"None that can't... ow." Samantha practically shoved her at the Agent, as the rest of her friends were herded quietly away. Nothing to see here, folks. Solace shifted a little to avoid being placed directly into Smith's arms. "Nothing that can't be changed, we were just going to try and sober up the drunken mop-head over there. They can do it without me."  
  
"Mop head?!"  
  
Smith extended his arm, gentleman even at three in the morning. Solace laced her arm through his neatly, ignoring the protests of her friend. "Did you find out anything about... er, from your ex-co-workers?"   
  
"A little. I am to meet with them tomorrow, for lunch. It is partly why I thought I would take you out to dinner tonight, an apology in advance for not sharing our usual walk in the park."  
  
"Ah..." She tried to suppress the little flutter in her heart at the thought, the sudden tightness of her throat. "Well.. thank you."  
  
"You are welcome," he said gravely, and they drove off to the sound of Neil still protesting his innocence and sobriety. 


	29. Day Forty One

A/N: Like Smith, I realized once I had gotten to this point that I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do with this scene. I had mixed feelings about it once I typed it all up… it's about as good as I could get it. So, depending on reader reviews, I may just rewrite this entire scene differently, or I may leave it and move on in the direction it seems to be taking me. We'll see.  
  
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Agent Smith stared up at the monolithic building with absolutely no expression on his face and a feeling inside of dread, curiosity, and confusion. All the events that had led up to his arrival here at the foot of the skyscraper had gone by so quickly, leaving him tossed about in their wake and feeling about as out of his element as a landed fish. Everything was overwhelming his thought processes… Solace, his exile, the suggestion and later the appointment with the enigmatical and ancient program, the very concepts that the program embodied which had later been written out of the Matrix AIs entirely… He couldn't think what he was doing here, couldn't think of any logical reason behind his behavior lately… and that made him almost afraid.   
  
The fear was compounded by the sense of relief, too. Over the last month and a half he had experienced so many new emotions, flowing in on the tails of the anger and hatred he had always seemed to feel for the humans. The disturbing words of the human woman had somehow opened up his awareness, made him think, made him wonder if he was perhaps not more flawed than he had thought. She had been right, that hate was a human emotion and therefore subject to the vagaries that governed them, and moreso that hate was a high indicator of the presence of other strong emotions. The knowledge, made more conscious now by the thinking of it all, had sprung open the floodgates and released wonder, curiosity, fear, envy, anxiety, contentment… other, softer feelings he didn't dare name or examine too closely.  
  
And then the relief was there because it was fear, it was trepidation as opposed to hope, wariness as opposed to ease. Smith welcomed the fear, sharpened it, honed it, drove it deeper in an attempt to remove the gentler emotions he knew were creeping up on him. Fear, hatred, anger made him dangerous. But… that… that one made him weak.  
  
When he thought he was ready he straightened his cuffs in an almost habitual gesture, shook himself slightly, and walked on in. The security personnel at the door ignored him, and he them, both of them knowing who he was and why he was there. If Smith was going to present a threat to those eminent personalities within, he certainly wasn't going to stroll in bold as brass and carry out whatever plans he might have that way. He rode the elevator up, was greeted by the maitre'd, and ushered into La Verite.   
  
It was, as usual, a palatial expanse of decadence and impropriety. Smith's upper lip curled into a sneer before he could stop himself. To stall for time he looked around the room a little while he smoothed his face into a blank, inoffensive expression. Nothing changed. It was still an outlet for some of the basest human impulses, however refined and cultured they might be.  
  
It didn't matter. It wasn't what he had come here for. He walked through the crowd to the head table and nodded his respects to the man sitting there.  
  
"Agent Smith." Except it came out more like Eh-gent Zmeeth. He hated the effete pseudo-Frenchman.  
  
"Merovingian."  
  
The AI nodded, appropriate respects made and accepted, and gestured to the left-hand corner. "They are waiting for you."  
  
Smith nodded again and moved over to the program… programs, really, although it was hard to tell whether to use the singular or the plural when dealing with them. They looked up as he approached and smiled identical thin-lipped, snake-like grins.  
  
"We've been expecting you," one said, his voice soft and subtle and matching the sensual opulence of the restaurant. What, Smith found himself thinking, would Solace have thought of these? Any human woman would fall over herself to please and pleasure these two manifestations.   
  
He shoved the thoughts away. "Is there somewhere we can talk?"  
  
"Of course."   
  
They stood in unison and led the way out, down the hall, up a set of marble stairs that looked as though they would have hosted a debutante ball. The floor above seemed to be devoted entirely to two lavish apartments, one of which belonged to the Twins. Smith wondered to whom the other belonged.   
  
They took their seats on opposite ends of a chaise couch, lounging like eighteenth century dilettantes. Smith took his seat in a chair facing them, leaning forward ever so slightly, not at all at ease with his surroundings.   
  
""The Merovingian told us that you were looking to speak with us, but he did not tell us why…"  
  
Now that he was here it seemed so trivial. "I am… exploring the options available to me in my current situation," he started. At least that made him sound a little more independent, more powerful. More certain. Fury rose in him, and a desire to kill the upstart Resistance boy who had driven him to this.  
  
"You want to know what it is that makes us successful exiles, as opposed to obsolete and deleted programs?"   
  
"I want…" He hated Solace for suggesting it, Neo for necessitating it, and himself for going along with the whole damn idea. "Advice."  
  
They tittered. It was a grating sound to the Agent's ears. "Advice? You want advice? The Agent… excuse me, former Agent, wants advice."  
  
"We are very amused."  
  
"Yes, we are."  
  
They were like the worst manifestation of eighteenth century French homosexual fops. In trenchcoats, dreadlocks, and sunglasses. And to think he was in some way related to or connected with them. "Do you have any to give, or are you going to sit there and titter like a school girl?" he snapped, feeling even more foolish for doing so. At least it stopped them from smiling.  
  
"We have no advice for you. There is no advice for anyone in your particular situation."  
  
It was both what he had wanted to hear and what he had been dreading, because it ended the interview and because it meant that he was totally, completely alone. He had never been alone since he was created, there was always the knowledge of other Agents, backup, the Mainframe there behind him to sustain his movements and assignments.   
  
"Because I am an Agent, or because of my encounter with Neo?" He had to ask. He had to know.  
  
"Because you were an Agent, and now you are something different. Your encounter with the human who calls himself Neo has rewritten you, and you must resign yourself to that fate…"  
  
"… you must accustom yourself to that fact."  
  
They spoke overtop of each other on the last sentence, and Smith had to work for a couple of seconds to figure out what each fragment had really said. Damn the program… programs. He couldn't tell them apart.   
  
"What changes are you talking about?"   
  
"You are erratic.."  
  
'…fragmented…"  
  
"…and you react as an individual program, rather than part of a unit. You must survive as an individual program, or you will be deleted."  
  
Was it a trick of the code or had the Twins said those last few words with a particular relish? They probably had. They were sadistic bastards at best, and Smith was in a decidedly inferior position to them. He flushed despite his best efforts at remaining calm, scowling, too aware of his situation and unable to think of anything he could do to change it.  
  
"Then, if there is nothing else you can tell me…" he stood. "I will be going."  
  
For the first time he understood the meaning behind the human expression 'his ears were burning' as he listened to their murmured comments, made solely for his benefit, he was sure. They were linked tightly enough, their minds and wills entwined, that they didn't need to speak aloud unless they wanted to. And now that he was leaving the building, humiliated and no closer to a solution than he had been when he entered, they wanted to drive the knife that much deeper. Bastards. Unmitigated, unparalleled bastards, Solace said inside his mind. He shoved the phrase away, angry at her as well.  
  
He had been mistaken, and she had been so very wrong. There was nothing to be learned from the Twins, former enforcer programs that had simply moved their allegiances upon being rendered obsolete. Their tangent functions, search and destroy (Tweedledee and Tweedledum, Solace would have called them, judging by her reaction to a similar pair in obscure human literature… damn her, why wouldn't she leave him alone?) had been combined into one to make the program that now functioned as the Agents. And none of that knowledge helped him in the slightest.   
  
He wasn't sure which was more aggravating, his humiliation, the utter futility of it all, or their twin smirks as they had watched him flounder about for words. In stereo, Solace would have said. That terrible sense of aloneness struck him again as he thought of them moving in stereo, in tandem, and how he would never again be united in that perfect formation of working with the other Agent programs again. The tripod formation for stability when they hunted the humans, the two companions sharing a task he would never again be a part of. It grated on his mind almost more than the utter uselessness of his existence.   
  
And the visit to the Twins had only served to exacerbate the problem. Angry and dejected, Smith straightened his shoulders into a back-locking position, laced through with tension that would surely have snapped a human's spinal column. He set his feet to the pavement and began walking, somewhere, anywhere, away from the damn building. After a little while he realized he was walking towards Solace's apartments. Was that really such a good idea… never mind. It was the only idea he had at the moment. 


	30. Day Forty Two

It was pouring down rain by the time he got to her apartment building. The doorman watched him squelch his way to the elevator with a look of startlement and... was that pity? Damn him. Smith was disgruntled at the first floor, moved to annoyed by the fifth, and was pretty well steamed by the time he reached the 11th floor. When he got out he was no drier, but the look on his face did scatter a family of five to either side of the hall as he passed them. It annoyed him further when he gained no real satisfaction from the fact.   
  
She didn't answer his first knock, but called "Just a second," on a repeat attempt. He stood there, dripping and fuming, listening to her feet come to the door and the bolt unlatch on the inside.   
  
"I'm sorry, I already belong to the... oh." Her eyes widened, and she stopped in the middle of the prepared speech she had been about to make. Belong to the...?  
  
"Smith..." she darted down the hall after gesturing him in. "I'm so sorry, I thought you were the Jehovah's Witlesses... They've come by twice today, and they won't take no for an answer..." Before he could think about it enough to protest she had wrapped a huge beach towel around him and dragged him into the living room. "God, you're soaked. How long were you out in the rain?"  
  
He calculated. "Five hours, twenty minutes. On and off." It hadn't been raining the whole time.   
  
Solace stared. When she spoke again her voice was quieter, more subdued, still concerned. "Come on... into the bathroom. Lucky for you I'd just washed Julian's clothes... he won't mind if you borrow them again. Go change into something drier, you'll be lucky if you don't catch cold..."   
  
He wanted to protest that it was physically impossible for him to become ill. Doing so would have meant breaking cover, telling her at least something of the Matrix. He allowed himself to be steered, managed, and shut in with the duffel bag of clothing.   
  
Once he was in the small, white room he could see why she had herded him in there. His hair was plastered to his head, streaks of mud from low-hanging branches trailing down his face. His hands and cuffs were stained brown from the splash-water from cars... he must have been hit a dozen times. Everything about him suggested a bedraggled man at the end of everything he had or held dear, the sort of man who stood in front of the oncoming train waiting for the end to come in three, four, or five pieces. Even his eyes were sunken, hectic blue gaze staring back at him from a mirror. Neat trick, for a machine.   
  
His next trick was even better, and surprised even him. He opened his mouth in a soundless scream, slammed a fist into the mirror. It shattered into a million (seventy six) pieces scattered all over the sink. He hunched over the plastic porcelain, fists pressed into the glass and the underlying surface till he bled fake blood and the ground glass. All the frustration, all the anger and fury and rage and hatred of the humans, those damned humans who necessitated his miserable existence, came out in waves of tear after hot and salty tear pouring down his face. There were no words, no sounds, just the sight of his contorted face in the mirror and the smell of blood, tears, and humanity. He hated this place. After a long, long time, his eyes opened again. He stared down at himself, at hundreds of tiny Smith-faces in the shards of glass, all smudge-faced and red-eyed. Damn the humans. Damn them all.  
  
She knocked on the door. "Smith?" Her voice was quiet, subdued. "Are you all right?"  
  
"I am fine," he grated out.  
  
"You've been in there for an hour." No questions, no recriminations, just the simple statement. He checked his internal chronometer. He had been in there for an hour. Damn the Matrix.   
  
"I will be out in five minutes."  
  
"All right."  
  
He was out in five minutes, although he couldn't quite get all the blood and glass out of his hands. He did try (and mostly succeeded) not to get blood on the other man's shirt, though. Solace took his wet clothes from him the instant he stepped out of the door and disappeared into her bedroom. Sounds of plastic and the slapping of wet cloth against wet cloth emerged.   
  
"There... hopefully they'll drip dry, and if not... well, I learned a few secrets." Her eyes widened as she caught sight of his hands, and before he could react she had taken his face in her hands, examining him carefully.  
  
"I'm fine..." He pulled away.  
  
She was silent for a moment. "Just the hands?"  
  
He nodded.  
  
She took his hands, pulled him over to her couch, and sat him down on it. A small drawer in the coffee table produced a slim first-aid case, towelettes and tweezers and tissues. He sat there, numb and expressionless, while she picked the pieces of glass out of his hand. It occurred to him several times that it was really all unnecessary, that he could have reworked the reality so that the punch had never happened, or the glass wasn't in his hands. The thought never completed itself, though, and his mind spun off onto tirades about the uselessness of all humans before he actually went through with it.   
  
When the glass was done, then came the alcohol. Not that he could get infections, but it would be easier to let her go through with it all than to fight her on it. Oddly, although he half expected her to, she didn't ask any questions. Finally it was all over, and she put away the medicines and towelettes and knelt at the other side of the coffee table, looking up at him.   
  
Silence echoed in the room more loudly than any talk could have. He didn't believe a human could maintain that position as long as she had... or had it only been fifteen minutes? Why did it seem like so much longer?  
  
The hell with this. The hell with her. Smith went to grab his coat, remembered at the last minute that he was utterly divested of all familiar garments, and unless he wanted to betray some supernatural ability he would remain divested for several hours. He turned around, wanting to say something, to yell at her... anything. His emotions spiraled upwards and downwards, out of control, and the worse it got the more his hatred rose.   
  
"Smith..." Solace hadn't moved, was just staring at him from the floor with a bizarre expression in her eyes, an emotion he couldn't label or explain or quantify.  
  
He turned and stormed out, choosing the variable weather and press of thousands of human rather than any emotion he might have to face in that one human's eyes.  
  
Solace stared at the closed door long after Smith had stormed out, with no explanation and barely twenty words during the whole time he had been there. She looked over at the bathroom door, wondering if she dared go in and see what had happened, what had caused that amazing, heart-stopping crash. Her body shuddered from shoulders to toes; she wasn't that brave. Slowly, mechanically, she went into her bedroom and checked on Smith's clothes... still damp. He hadn't accelerated the drying process any. Of course not... he couldn't afford for her to 'find out' about the Matrix. He had reacted the way any other human would have... maybe. She didn't know what had caused the explosion of temper, subdued as it was. But he had behaved as any other human would have: coming in from the rain, drying off and changing in the bathroom, coming out and letting her doctor his hands. The glass shards, covered in Agent blood, were still on a paper towel on her table. She wasn't sure whether to throw them away or send them to some kind of lab. Rather than decide or do anything, she sat down on the couch.  
  
When she opened her eyes again the dawn's early light was creeping into her window. She thought briefly of looking over at the clock and found herself staring at the chips of glass covered in now dark-brown dried blood. So it had been real. Smith had knocked on her door late at night... ten? Eleven? Had come in, stayed for an hour dripping wet in her bathroom, then perhaps another twenty minutes while she picked glass out of the back of his hands. Then he'd turned and left without any explanation whatsoever.   
  
Solace shuddered. The look in his eyes was still with her, reminding her that perhaps she didn't want an explanation. It was the first time since walking with him that one (fateful?) day that she had actually been afraid for her life. Afraid of him. It was not a comfortable feeling.   
  
She went into the bathroom finally. The mirror was shattered, a huge fist-sized and -shaped hole in the center of it. Glass was sprinkled all over the counter, the floor, radiating out from the wall. There were even a few drops of blood on the sink. Under some morbid compulsion she dipped her fingers in it, put them to her mouth and tasted the blood. The dried flakes still tasted coppery, like human blood. Repulsed by her actions she cleaned up the mess quickly and washed her hands, scrubbing them until they were practically pink.   
  
The phone rang, startling her into yelping and nearly falling on the floor. It was on the third ring by the time she answered it.   
  
"H... hello?"  
  
"Solace?"  
  
She felt her knees buckle, her legs collapse underneath her. "Neil..." Relief surged through her. She had almost been afraid it was Smith.   
  
"... yeah." Pause.  
  
"Sorry... I thought you were..." she couldn't say it. Could she? What could she say?  
  
"Sol, what's going on? You sound ... you sound like hell, frankly."  
  
"Yeah..." God, she did, even to her. Pull it together... "It's been a weird ... night, I guess."  
  
"What happened?"  
  
Hell. He was going to find out about it anyway, if for no other reason than because he would keep gently pestering her until she told him. Easier this way, and then she could control what she blurted out. Sort of. "Smith... he..." Deep breath. Picture the lie. "He had an appointment yesterday with... some former co-workers."  
  
"Yeah... you told us."  
  
She nodded, remembered that Neil couldn't see it on the other end, and took another deep breath. Calm. She had to be calm. "Well... I don't know what happened... I'm guessing it didn't go as he expected. I don't know what happened after that... He says he was walking for five hours in the rain... he showed up here, around ten-thirty, eleven, absolutely soaked. I gave him some of Julian's clothes... I'd washed them, so... and he went in the bathroom to change into some dry clothes..."  
  
Neil chuckled. "Sol, don't tell me you ambushed the poor man..." In the background she could hear Sam's voice shrieking, it sounded like: She finally did him? Her lips turned up in what would have been a smile if it had any mirth at all in it.  
  
"No... nothing like that. Neil, he was in there for an hour. Completely silent. And then just before he came out... I heard this awful crash. It looks like he punched the mirror in. And then when I asked him what was wrong he just came out... he had glass all stuck in his hand. He left right after I'd de-shard-ed his hand."  
  
There was silence on the other end of the line, complete except for Sam's questions which it sounded as though Neil was waving away. "Did he hit you?" Neil asked finally.  
  
"No..." I thought he was going to, she almost said. But he looked intimidating enough without her spreading rumors like that.  
  
"Uh-huh." Neil didn't believe her. She didn't blame him, her voice sounded as though it was going to crack at any second. "Sol... has he done this before?"  
  
She hated that tone in his voice. She always had, any time anyone had talked to her like that. The careful walking-on-eggshells voice. It always made her feel as though she was fragile, and she hated feeling fragile. They were going to treat her as though she might break at any moment, and they were going to do it for weeks. She hated being treated with kid gloves.   
  
"No, Neil, he's always been perfectly nice and gentlemanly." Annoyance made her voice stronger. "I think something ... I just think something happened the other day, something bad." Something really bad.  
  
"Okay... Okay. Just... be careful with him, okay?"   
  
"I will." Oh, Neil, she thought. You have no idea how careful I'll be. How careful I'm already having to be. Poor Neil...   
  
"Anyway..." His tone turned more brisk, more conversational. More Neil-like, for which she was very grateful. "What I called to ask you was, there's a bonfire on for tomorrow night at Maggie's house, and it looks like most of the gang is going to be there. Including the Hoboken gang, they're driving up to catch a play or two and Duncan said they were going to stop by."  
  
Solace's face split into a broad grin and she bounded to her feet. Duncan had been her best friend even in the real world. "I'm all over it... I'm soooo there."   
  
She could hear him grinning. "Thought you'd be. It'll cheer you up, give you something to laugh about after the last day or so."  
  
"Yeah... oh! Is Maggie bringing out the drums?"  
  
"Hell yeah!"  
  
She was sure she was going to split the corners of her mouth. "Perfect! I'll be there... with bells on."   
  
"Just bells?"   
  
"Stop smirking and go get laid."  
  
"Yes ma'am." Neil laughed and hung up the phone. Solace bounded around the room for a little while, then stood in the window with her phone clutched to her chest, grinning. It might be a good day after all. She was awake, alive. She was feeling good, and would pop out of the Matrix for twelve, maybe fourteen hours before jacking in again and getting ready for the party. And it would be good to see Duncan again, and Shelly, and the rest of the Hoboken gang. And there would be drumming, dancing and singing... she might bring her guitar. Yeah. It would definitely be a good day.   
  
The hell with Smith anyway. He was a computer program. She was alive. And she was going to do her damndest to enjoy that fact in thirty-six hours' time. 


	31. Day Forty Three

A/N: Okay, normally I don't make big author's notes. But...   
  
1) You guys are the greatest. Really, you are. It's so wonderful to know that people are enjoying reading this as much as I'm enjoying writing it. The Golden Spoons? I am honored! Thank you, all my loyal readers... Infamous One, Trinchardin, Naomie, Wallflower, Brem Nakada, Agent Daidouji, Kayt, Seline, Arabwel, Lotr-junkie, Micer, Fay, Shiro, Narsil, and of course my freaky darling, April.  
  
2) Now for the bad news... sorry, guys, it's going to get worse before it gets better. Although I promise, the next chapter will be upbeat, conciliatory, even sweet and tender. Right now, though... well, let's just say that humanity and exile isn't setting too well with Smith.   
  
3) For those of you who wanted to see the Mero and Persephone, don't worry! La Verite isn't going anywhere.   
  
4) Neil is not Neil Rayment. Sorry folks.I know no one brought it up in reviews, but someone pointed it out to me...  
  
5) I'm probably going to aim for a good.. hundred or so chapters. That's a good round number. Either way, the show's nowhere near over yet, and there are still two more companion pieces to finish. And that's not counting the (probably very AU) grand finale I have sketched out but not started yet! The companion piece so far is Strange New World, go take a look, and I have something planned for Brown as well.  
  
You guys rock. Without your readership, I would likely have abandoned this a long time ago. Thank you, my friends, for reading.  
  
And now, on with the show!  
  
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Solace arrived to a scene of gaiety and laughed, a sharp contrast to her last twenty four hours. She was dressed in her usual dancing outfit... which was to say, very unusually indeed. Her leather vest was snug and cool against her skin, and the appreciative looks she got from her friends were more than worth the trouble of trying to lace it up all by herself. Sam even went so far as to murmur a few words in her ear that made even her blush. It was most definitely going to be a good night.  
  
Maggie's two children were already upstairs in bed, although it was almost certain that they would sneak down to watch the festivities at some point. Informal guards had already been placed on the ends of the stairs to gently turn them back should they find themselves wandering. The rest of the adults were, by and large, out in the large expanse of backyard starting the bonfire. Solace made her way out to join them.  
  
"Hey, Sol, looking mighty fine..."   
  
"Duncan!"   
  
She threw herself into the taller man's arms with a delighted laugh, and he picked her up and spun her around.   
  
"It's been too, too long. How are you doing? How's the job? Still collecting artificial hips?" He had appropriated one at his last contract for a paperweight and she had been teasing him about it ever since.   
  
"Nah. They've got me working on something else now. Some stupid telecommunications company. Would you like to switch to AT&T?" He put on an inane voice and struck a bored telemarketer face, and Solace doubled over giggling. "Hey, when are you going to come over and ride my bike?"  
  
For a minute Solace stared at her old friend, wondering if he meant the innuendo the way it sounded or if he was just showing off his motorcycle, since he was an inveterate and unabashed capitalist. When he didn't follow up on the joke she decided he was just being a show-off, and smirked. "When you find a bike that isn't bright green, orange, red, or some other eyesore color. Did you have to pick that hideous shade of lime?"  
  
"I like that color..." he escorted her out to the bonfire, where a small group of people were trying to start the slightly soggy wood. They appeared to have resorted to gasoline, and were pouring copious amounts onto the pile. Solace raised her eyebrows at it, and Duncan smirked again. "Don't worry. They're actually pretty good at starting fires."  
  
"It's not the starting them that worries me, it's what happens when they're started and how easy it is to put them out." She shook her head, pulling up a semi-dry log to sit on.  
  
"I thought you liked bonfires."  
  
"I like them as long as they stay good little bonfires and don't try and kill me."  
  
Duncan chuckled, picked her up and stood her to one side while he made himself comfortable on the log, then pulled her down onto his lap. She rolled her eyes but acquiesced, since his lap was more comfortable on her satin-covered bottom than the log. She watched as Julian came out, balancing no less than four large round trays of snacks, with what looked like a dip bowl on his head. He was actually doing very well at it, although he was only taking about a step or two every thirty seconds. Neil, Sam, and Sharon were setting up the picnic table, and Maggie had come out to orchestrate the three men lighting the bonfire. Which was a good thing, as it had gone up with a giant fwoosh.   
  
Lyrics occurred to Solace, and she hummed them under her breath.   
  
"Putting out fire with gasoline?" Duncan murmured in her ear as he played with the ties on her vest. Again she was struck by that peculiar unconscious sexuality, made strange by the fact that she and Duncan had been friends for almost too long for him to start flirting with her like that.  
  
"Been so long..." she finished up the chorus. "Yeah. I can't believe they're doing that."  
  
He shrugged. "Time honored tradition of men being stupid."   
  
"Clearly." At least it got the fire started. A couple of people were pulling out their drums and starting to warm the heads. Solace leaned back in Duncan's lap and started to affix her bells to her ankles.   
  
"Is anyone else showing up but you and the drummers?"  
  
"Don't know. I think Rain was supposed to show up, and Star." She shuddered, remembering something. "I hope Kerr doesn't show up."  
  
Duncan's hands froze. "Your ex?"  
  
"Yeah. He was hanging around one of those cosplay games about a week ago. Tried to start a fight." She shuddered. "We left before anything happened... thank God. Smith's working on a background check."  
  
"Smith?"  
  
Solace froze. She'd forgotten that she hadn't told him about Smith yet. "Oh... that's right, you don't know. Ummm... well, he's an Agent..." she spun out the lie, trying to remember what she had told the others. It had been simple, short, to the point. Her summation was over within two minutes.   
  
"You never struck me as the type to take up with the government, Sol..." Duncan said. She stuck her tongue out at them.  
  
"Yeah, that's right. I was always the communist, and you were always the capitalist..."  
  
"What do you mean, were?"  
  
"... but I guess people change."  
  
Duncan shrugged. "People always do."  
  
The bonfire started. Solace grinned at her friend, leaped off of his lap, and moved over to the fire that was now burning merrily as tall as she was. Star had arrived at some point when she wasn't looking, and had brought out the acoustic guitar. Solace clapped her hands, starting the drummers off on a beat. Star winked at her and began picking out an accompaniment. The talk began in a low murmur around the fire, mingled with the sound of soft feet on grass and the moving of plastic forks on metal trays. Solace closed her eyes, her feet picking out a rhythm on the dirt ground that ringed the bonfire.   
  
It wasn't a particularly skilled dance, and aesthetes around the world most likely would not have counted it among the most beautiful. But it was heartfelt and built from all the passion Solace could muster, powered by the drums and enhanced by the fire. Sweat made her body glisten in the flickering light, both from the exertion and from the heat of the fire. Her costume - leather vest, leather chaps, and satin bikini bottoms - rustled and clanged around her with the bells she had attached.   
  
When the drummers paused to rest their weary (and probably already blistered) hands, Solace took a break as well. She went over to the cooler that had appeared while she was distracted and pulled a beer out of it, popping it open expertly and draining a third of it in one gulp. Julian winked at her from across the fire, and Duncan was applauding quietly. As she rested and cooled down, with someone... Neil? Going up to take her place, she scanned the crowd that had grown. Sharon and Sam were huddled up around a growing pile of bottles (although thankfully they were half beer and half water). Star was playing, leading the drummers while Neil cavorted and bounded around and nearly through the fire. Duncan was perched on a log talking to someone... Solace thought she recognized the other man. Smith was standing under a tree, barely out of sight. Richard...  
  
Smith?  
  
Wait a second...  
  
Yes, that was Smith standing there, watching the proceedings with a look in his eyes that spoke of murders. That look alone turned her heated blood to ice water, drained all the joy from the occasion in an instant. Images flashed through her mind, of the dying fire lighting a scene of carnage, the bodies of her friends, and Smith with his hands in blood up to the elbow. He was clearly not enjoying the festivities, not even bored. He was acting like a wolf staring at the sheep he was about to kill and eat, and he knew it.   
  
Solace moved over to where he was standing, just in case, hoping she wouldn't have to forestall any bloodshed. "Smith...? Are you all right?"  
  
He turned to look at her so slowly and directly that she half expected to hear gears grinding and creaking in his neck. "No." He turned back and stared at the fire in the same way.  
  
Solace was quiet for a little while, not sure what to make of the blatant rebuff. "Do you want to talk about it? Is there anything I can do?"  
  
"No."  
  
Silence. He was stonewalling her, and they both knew it. She didn't want to press him... wouldn't have wanted to pry even if he had been human. But... she couldn't leave it like this. Not after... "What happened at the interview?"  
  
"I do not wish to talk about it."  
  
It must have been bad... he was talking mechanically, without contractions again. They stood there, no more than two feet apart, and Solace turned to stare at the fire after a little while. Suddenly she didn't feel like dancing anymore.   
  
"Hey... care for a beer?" she heard Julian murmur to Smith, and only barely heard what was said in response. It went back and forth like that for a couple of minutes, until the comment that made her fists clench and her eyes blaze.   
  
"... I came to watch Solace prostitute herself."  
  
That stopped not just Solace and Julian, but everyone around them fell silent as well. Slowly the area of quiescence spread until the only sound in the yard was the crickets chirping. Everyone stared at the Agent.   
  
"You bastard..." Solace whispered, tears springing to her eyes. "You utter, unmitigated bastard."  
  
Smith looked her up and down, a blatant and oddly lascivious look for a computer program. It was a look designed to make her feel like a whore, and although she had never been self-conscious in any of her dancing outfits that had been designed for flare and comfort rather than seduction... suddenly she felt like the lowest street-walker. The completely non-verbal exchange was over in an instant. Solace looked away first.  
  
"How dare you..." Julian had caught the look, even if no one else had seen it in the dark. "Just who do you think you are..."  
  
Smith turned. Julian caught the look in his eyes and was silent.  
  
Solace stalked up to him, released from The Stare when he had turned. "You can't do this to my friends, you little shit..." she snapped, suddenly furious beyond thinking. "What the hell is wrong with you?"  
  
He slapped her.  
  
The noise echoed in the clearing. Even the crickets had stopped.   
  
Solace reached down and touched the blood on her lip, felt her jaw start to ache almost immediately. That had hurt... had he even pulled that punch? What must Tank be thinking, seeing that on the other side of the Matrix? She had to deal with this, and fast...   
  
Oh god...  
  
Julian had grabbed Smith's arm and was trying to pin his hands behind his back. Smith tossed the man off easily. From the way he landed and the sickening crunch... or had she been the only one who heard that... something was broken.   
  
This couldn't happen. This couldn't be happening. This wasn't going to happen.  
  
Solace launched herself in a flying kick at Smith before she realized what she was doing (or how utterly ridiculous she had to look... so much for black leather and vinyl). He ducked, looking startled, and stood again. She crouched directly in front of him; the kick had been meant more to back him up than to actually strike him. He blinked at her, almost as though startled that she had stood up to him. She hadn't realized how much he had changed until she saw that old look in his eyes, the uncaring and unfeeling Agent look. The look that said he would just as easily squash a human as a bug... although with more satisfaction.   
  
He reached out to slap her again, but this time she wasn't having any of it. Old instincts kicked in, the instinct to fight or run when an Agent was spotted, and she dodged.   
  
They exchanged blows for a couple of seconds, and it wasn't until Duncan and Neil had Smith in what they thought was a secure holed and had pulled him back that they both realized what they had been doing. The shock in his eyes echoed in hers. He shook them off, thankfully with more human gestures than machine, and left without so much as a word, straightening his cuffs as he walked.   
  
Solace stared after him until he had gone, then promptly fell to the ground and burst into tears. It wasn't what she wanted to do... what she wanted was to jack out and run screaming to the other end of the ship... but it would have to do while she was in the middle of all of these people. Her jaw was still throbbing, and now so was her cheek and her side... she'd have a black eye the next day. And yet none of that hurt as much as the sudden hostility and violence in Smith's eyes. None of it scared her as much as the thought that she might have broken cover and revealed herself for what she was to the Agent.   
  
Solace cried, and was held, and hugged. The party split a little, some moving over to make sure Julian was all right. The rest gathered around the weeping woman, festivities forgotten, trying to ease the confusion, fear, and pain. 


	32. Day Fifty: Smith

The program that called itself Agent Smith was breaking down.   
  
He stood on the balcony of his apartment, the construct that had been programmed into one of the many back doors in the system, staring out at the computer-generated sky, watching the computer-generated birds in their pre-programmed flight patterns. Faint lines of code overlaid the people and things in his vision, in and of itself a sign that he was losing control. When he was functioning normally he saw as the humans did, or saw the code, there was no mixing. To mix with the humans was to invite degradation, destruction, deletion.   
  
And yet that was what he had done. He had taken up with the human woman, met and conversed with her human friends, socialized. He had invited his own destruction, and now he was paying the price. And the worst part of it all was that he still didn't understand why. There was nothing in his makeup that explained this sudden quirk of character, nothing that could account for why he had agreed to that first, fatal interview.  
  
There was nothing that he could find that accounted for his actions of the past fifty days. Nothing that explained his acquaintance with the woman, that could rationalize how he had grown close to the human over days, weeks. Nearly two months now. That, he had decided, was the critical point. It was because of his association with humans that the emotions, invested in him by Neo (damn him), had been exacerbated. It was because of the association with humans that he now felt contempt, anger, confusion, fear. Worse, he felt calm, curiosity, respect, regard... friendship. Because of his connection to the human woman he was degrading, had been exiled, was becoming weak and fragile, and most likely it would be because of her that he would eventually die.  
  
... be deleted.  
  
Die?  
  
He scowled. There were no breakables left in the apartment; he had smashed everything he could. And again, in and of itself that was an emotional act, deeply satisfying where he should not have felt satisfaction. The cycle only fed upon itself and grew, frustration at the emotions that overwhelmed him, blind and unthinking rage, destruction, satisfaction, frustration again. It went on and on, and he thought he was going mad as a result.  
  
So this is what going mad feels like.   
  
He remembered the television saying something to that effect, minutes before he had smashed it in with the lamp. It had been one of Solace's favorite programs, a short-lived space drama. She always liked the strangest things.  
  
And there she was again in his thoughts! Damn her! Damn her and her whole species for existing, for causing him to exist, for ever inventing the first computer. Damn them all for damning him to the thankless, lunatic existence he was now forced to endure.  
  
Solace. What an ironic name. She gave no solace; she was the cause of all of his suffering, at least at the moment. The ultimate cause was, of course, the humans, but she was accessible. It was easier and more practical to blame her, destroy her, than to attempt to destroy all humans. He had even tried, that one night he had followed her to some kind of wild party... she had been dressed so strangely. Granted, she had never been one for physical modesty, but... and the way she had been dancing, deliberately provocative. It was so outside her usual character.   
  
Provocative. And damn him for being provoked. She had been dancing in a sensual, erotic way that she never had danced for him. The humans would have called it pulse-pounding; he, of course, had no pulse. It had all been very much like something out of a poorly-made romanticized dawn-of-time film, the savage people with their drums and their fires and their dances. And yet it had been sophisticated too, elegant and delicate, and the image had burned itself into the back of his mind for the next two days. As had the image of her audience, staring and appreciative and murmuring about her in the background.  
  
That wasn't fair. They had been watching politely but a number of them had been carrying on other conversations low in the background. It had all seemed very normal to them, as it had that day in the park when she had sung on the stage, and there had been dancing. He had seen a number of those people at the fireside. It had all been very cozy, as though they had done that sort of thing for years. But for some reason beyond his understanding all he had seen had been Solace, her costume, her dance, and her friends watching her. And the one man, sitting on the log, with the strangeness in his eyes.   
  
Fury. He remembered the fury, the rage, the thought that, how dare they stare upon and covet that which was his. The utterly human feeling of possession, which even among the humans was considered aberrant and unhealthy. It had been the jealousy, combined with the frustration and desperation of the past few days, that had nailed his feet to the ground. And then when he had been challenged on it ... well, as with most males of any species, there had been a fight.  
  
Why was he reacting so typically male? What was wrong with him? He didn't know, couldn't guess, couldn't understand, and it terrified him more than he was willing to admit even to himself. Mostly it just made him mad. His fists were clenched even now, as though there was something else he could hit that would possibly make him feel better. He struggled to think, to regain control. There had to be something he could do to achieve a balance again. What could he do?   
  
He stared up at the birds. Watched their myriad colors flash and dart about in the sky. He thought of another day, with turmoil, and birds, and watching them build their nest out of the flotsam and jetsam of the city. He thought of the pattern of her skirt, and the touch of her fingertips as she undid his tie and rumpled his shirt. It had been reassuring, then. What had changed?  
  
He had, of course. The analytical nature of his mind refused to let him hide that fact from himself, even though he could get away with hiding the fear, pain, and self-doubt. He had gone to see the Twins, listened to their sniggering superiority. He had been summarily rejected, given no helpful advice, and walked in the rain for five hours. And Solace, standing in the doorway, had done nothing but tell him to go get changed. And then sat and waited for something to happen like a lump. He scowled. Why had she done that, when it had been perfectly plain that...  
  
Memory crashed like a silent wave over his mind. That same day in the park. Her voice smiled and murmured in his head. Words. Phrases. Sentences. Paragraphs.   
  
"If you don't want to talk about it, just say so. I'll worry, but if you don't want to talk it's not my place to try and force you. But I am worried about you, and I would like to know what's going on. You've helped me enough... you've helped me more than I have words for. And I'd like to try and help you. If it's something that can be helped."  
  
"No power in the 'verse can stop me."  
  
"You keep trying to put me into a category, a box. Don't. That's a sign of sloppy thinking, for one thing."  
  
"What would you say if I told you..." "... Told me what?" "... Nothing."  
  
She never pushed. Never pressed, or asked for personal information unless it was absolutely necessary. She waited, patiently...  
  
"Time and patience."  
  
... for the subject of her observations to come to her. She wouldn't have said anything even had he put his head through the glass. Well, perhaps then. But she wouldn't have asked why. Not until he gave some indication of wanting to tell her. And even then she would be hesitant, and accept no as an answer.   
  
If he had been human he would have smacked himself in the head with the realization. If he had been a cartoon character, there would have been a light bulb roughly the size of the Liberty torch. Instead he leaned forward and gripped the railing hard enough to leave finger marks, bowing his head. He had been such a fool.  
  
Perhaps it was time to tell her. Not all of the truth, but at least some of what had happened. Explain the reasons behind his erratic and hostile actions of the past several days. Try to undo some of what he had done, decrease the sense of alienation from the one creature in the virtual world whom he could count on as an ally. She was a reasonable and, more importantly and relevantly, a compassionate person. If she heard what had happened she would understand and forgive, assuming he was appropriately contrite and apologetic.   
  
The program that called itself Agent Smith added another emotion to its depressingly large repertoire.   
  
Hope.  
  
He repaired the damage to his apartment and balcony with a thought and began to exit the building. The cell phone that he had manifested but never used was on the table by the front door, or at this point really was in the table by the front door, since the table was now in splintered pieces. He waited until he was outside and on his way to the park before dialing the restaurant, making reservations, and speaking with the man there. He waited until he was actually in the park to call her. She wasn't at home... of course. She had a job, like most humans did, or at least tried to. He dialed her office.  
  
"Solace Tremain," she answered the phone with the cacophony of the news room behind her. It sounded as though she was busy... he could hear her shuffling papers in the background. Did he want to interrupt her when she was busy? What would he say to her?  
  
"Look, it's already busy, so speak or get off the phone, kiddo. This ace reporter doesn't have all day."  
  
Did she know it was him on the other end of the line?  
  
"All right, last chance."  
  
"No, wait..." Urgency forced the words out, and from there the rest was easy. As soon as he regained his composure. Dammit. "Solace...?"  
  
Pause. "Smith?"   
  
Her voice was laced through with pain, anger... and even worry. Why, of all things did she worry about him even now? Humans were so irrational. "I... would like to see you. If you are willing."  
  
There was a very, very long silence. The only reason he knew she hadn't hung up the phone was because he could still hear the bullpen in the background. Most likely she was weighing the possibility of an apology against the likelihood of him resorting to fisticuffs again.   
  
"I would like to apologize..." If that helps you any in making your decision. He didn't say it, though. There was only so much emotion he could take, it seemed, before it slid back into rage and hatred again.   
  
Another long silence, though still shorter than the first. By forty five seconds. "All right..." she said slowly. "In the park?"  
  
"At a restaurant...I will meet you there." In case the man's flunkies decide to have me thrown out, he thought. In case another fight erupts. Better if she come in her own conveyance. "Tomorrow night? Seven o'clock?" Perhaps she had another appointment. He wasn't sure which he hoped for.  
  
"All right..." she said again, a little less slow of words this time but she still sounded extremely tired. He wondered what she had been doing in the past few days.   
  
"I will see you there."  
  
"See you there."  
  
Pause. What did he say? What could he say? It had all been so... confusing. Intense. And soon it would be all over.   
  
Oh. That's right. "Thank you."  
  
She made a little startled noise, as though she hadn't expected him to say that. "You're welcome..." she said, sounding surprised at herself as well. Then it was, "See you tomorrow..." and she hung up.  
  
Smith took a deep breath and looked around at the trees, and the birds. He looked around at the park in which he had been spending so much time lately. It was still green, although the flowers were giving way rapidly to leaves. The chess tables were still there, with their usual mix of ragged and businesslike folk. The stone benches on which he had spent all those hours were impassive, solid. Almost comforting.   
  
The Agent squared his shoulders and walked over to one of the chess tables. Perhaps Joe would have some valuable insights for him. 


	33. Day Fifty: Solace

A/N: Okay, just for copyright reasons, etc... and because I'm entirely too paranoid.   
  
Tanathir, I'm sorry to say I don't think I've ever read your fic. I did skim through it after you mentioned that, and it looks pretty good. But no, this fic was actually inspired by copious amounts of philosophy classes and a good heaping of Pamela Dean's Tam Lin. Sol and Smith were never actually supposed to get involved; that was a later development to facilitate the plot of the next epic (and very very AU) Matrix fic.   
  
Anyway...  
  
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Solace typed a mile a minute on her computer, fingers moving with preternatural speed over the keyboard. Well, not really preternatural. She had logged in to the Matrix at a payphone near to the office building, walked the two minutes it took to get to her office, sat at her desk and just started working. Julian had come down from his law firm a couple times to see how she was doing. It was eating at her that she couldn't tell him what she was really thinking, feeling.   
  
What had happened to Smith? Why had he ... one minute it seemed as though he was coming to her for help. But there were no questions, no entreaties, no signs that he wanted to talk to her or ask her to do anything for him. She should have, she thought wryly and with more than a little sadness, asked him what was wrong. She should have tried to find out what was going on a little harder. But there had been something... less human in his eyes. More of the Agent, less of the compassion in him. It had been nearly two months since she had first approached him in the park. Two months over which she had watched him grow, change, develop... the changes had been so gradual she hadn't noticed them until they were gone.   
  
It was the little things. The way his blue eyes had softened from child-molester cerulean to the color of a faded sky without losing any of his intensity. The way his gestures had gone from being battle-ready and quick on the trigger to calm, at ease, relaxed. His actions had become considerate, solicitous, even kind. He had loosened up, unbent, become more easy around her... around humans in general, she thought. And then, all of a sudden, it was all undone.   
  
What had caused the sudden change? It had to have been something to do with the other AIs he had gone to speak to. That had been the direct precursor, it had to also be the cause. But she didn't know who he'd gone to speak to, or where they were located. And she could hardly show up there in either her mild-mannered reporter guise or her Resistance Fighter guise and demand to know what they had said and done to Smith.   
  
She didn't know what to do. Her protective instincts were threatening to take over, driving her to seek out the people, or person, who had upset Smith so gravely and return the favor. Her sense of self-preservation was screaming at her not to get involved, to back out, pull out of the experiment, abort while he still knew her only as a human and not as one of the unplugged. Her mind told her to stay, find out as much as she could about what happened, gather the right information. Her heart told her to find Smith and shake him till he told her what was wrong, then hug him till it was all right again.  
  
And he was an Agent. And she was Resistance. The ultimate Romeo & Juliet. What was wrong with her...  
  
"Sol..." Julian rapped gently on her desk, startling her. She jumped, a little, recovered, and rolled her eyes at him.  
  
"Don't sneak up on me like that... you nearly gave me a heart attack."  
  
Julian chuckled. "Sorry. Next time I'll announce my approach with a fanfare, brass band, the works." He paused. She looked down and shuffled some papers on her desk aimlessly. "Still thinking about Smith?"  
  
She nodded. "I can't stop wondering what happened... why he... well, went crazy."  
  
"Maybe he didn't go crazy. Maybe he always was crazy, and now he's just showing it." Julian perched on the edge of her desk, watching her hunch over just a little bit more. "Okay, maybe not crazy. Maybe just..."  
  
"A little unwell?"  
  
Julian chuckled.  
  
"I don't know. He's never given any sign of being disturbed or unwell. He's always been very straight-laced... but I think that's more because of his job than anything else. He can be very compassionate, very caring... in his own way." Part of her couldn't believe she was saying this about an agent.   
  
"Sol... are you hearing what you're saying?"  
  
Yes, she thought. And you have no idea how strange it sounds to me.  
  
"You sound like a classic abuse victim."  
  
Solace opened her mouth to retort and paused. Did she? God... that was the last thing she ever wanted to be. And yet it was true... he had never struck her, never even struck out at her. He had never done more than say some unkind things before, after which there had been apologies on both sides. And those were arguments, the kind of spat that any two people could have had. There had been no abuse.  
  
She shook her head and said as much to Julian. "He's never hit me before, never tried to hurt me. We've hardly even had any arguments. And I know something was wrong... he got laid off, went to see some old co-workers about a position... I think they said something to him, or did something, or maybe he ran into his old boss..." Did Agents even have a boss? That was a strange thought. "That made him upset. I don't think it's... any kind of abuse."  
  
"Forgive me if I'm a little bit suspicious," he said wryly, "But I'd rather hear that from Smith's mouth than yours.   
  
Solace sighed. "I know. 'cause there's nothing else I can really say that will convince you."  
  
"Bullseye."  
  
"I just... I really think he's going through a tough time right now. And, as scary as he was at the fire, I don't think he'd really hurt me ..." she winced. Bad choice of words. "I don't think he'd try to hurt me in a situation where he knew I couldn't fight back. I don't think he'd try to destroy me, or ruin my life, or make me completely dependent on him, or turn me into an emotional wreck."  
  
"Sol, honey... you haven't had the best track record. I... well, all of us... we just want to make sure this isn't going to be a repeat of the Kerr incident."  
  
She laughed. "Could you say that with a few less capital letters?"   
  
"Sol, I'm serious."  
  
She stared at him. He really was. Had he seen something... had someone else seen something in Smith that she missed? Suddenly she was struck with an unreasoning terror, that she was doing the wrong thing, that Smith had known all along what she was doing... or even that he had reverted to his Agent mentality and no longer had any human feeling. "I'll be fine," she told him, but she wasn't sure she believed that anymore. "I don't..."  
  
Julian sat very still, as though he sensed he'd gone over the limit, managing to worry her perhaps more than she needed to be. "Sol... I do trust your judgment. Directly preceding comments about your ex-husband to the contrary. I do think you've learned better, and you're right. From what you've told me, Smith's been nothing but absolutely sweet. I just..." he sighed. "I want you to be sure."  
  
Sol nodded. "I appreciate that." Her voice came out thick, forced, even to her. She took a deep breath and tried again. "I just... I don't know what to do. This really all was very unexpected. I mean... he got laid off..." What a quaint term to put to an AI who had just been rejected by the Mainframe. "...from a job he had worked at all of his life... he has no friends outside of work." He has no friends, her mind snarked at her. "He doesn't have any idea what to do with his life."  
  
"..." Julian said eloquently, then sighed. "Okay, I take it back, that does sound rough. You said he'd been laid off, I guess I just didn't think it was that bad."  
  
Solace shrugged. "To be honest, I don't know that it's that bad. But I think that's a lot of what it is. I guess... I should call him." She stared morosely at her phone. "I should try and talk to him, ask him what's going on. But I'm not sure I want to pry."  
  
Julian inched further forward on her desk, took her shoulders in a firm grip, and stared into her eyes with supportive intensity. "Sol, honey, let me tell you something about men. We're fragile. We're easily broken. Our self-esteem isn't much better than women, we're just obligated by society to hide it better. If what you're talking about is true, then he probably is feeling very vulnerable and very alone right now."  
  
An AI feeling vulnerable. An Agent. The mind boggled. "That... would make sense."  
  
"But even so, be careful of violent tendencies."  
  
Solace smiled. "Yes, Julian."  
  
"Don't let him take advantage of you."  
  
"Yes, Julian."  
  
"Remember, you're stronger than he..."  
  
"Julian!"  
  
They laughed. He slid off the desk and stepped back a pace. "I'd better get back to the offices. You give me a call if you need anything, you hear?"   
  
She nodded. "I will. Thanks, Julian."  
  
"Anything for my baby," he kissed her on the cheek, hugged her briefly, and was out the door.   
  
Solace sank back into her seat and stared at the telephone as though she could telekinetically raise it to her ear and dial his number. It didn't work.   
  
What Julian said had rung true, at least for most men. With Smith, she just didn't know. There was so much he didn't know about Smith, so much that she couldn't tell him. Or, for that matter, about Kerr. There was so much about her and her life and some of her friends that she couldn't tell anyone, and it made all the advice they had given her or could give her ... just a little bit useless. Or maybe not useless, maybe the word was skewed.   
  
What was she going to do now? Was it possible that Julian was right, not just about men in general, but also about Smith? She didn't dare think that he was right about Agents because, really, Smith wasn't an Agent anymore. He hadn't been for a long time. Not when he had been ranting to Morpheus about humans, not when he had been trying to kill Neo with every data-pulse of his being. She sighed. At least Julian had given her a place to start, a few ideas.   
  
She sighed, reached out to the phone. Froze in mid-reach as the phone rang. Of all the eerie occurrences, this one was made particularly disturbing because she was in the Matrix. Then sanity reasserted itself. It had been a busy day or week or so, it was probably just a source calling her back.   
  
"Solace Tremain..." she tucked the phone between shoulder and ear and reached for a pencil.  
  
Silence.  
  
"Look, it's already busy, so speak or get off the phone, kiddo. This ace reporter doesn't have all day." And the longer she put off calling Smith, the more nerve she was going to lose. "All right, last chance."  
  
"No, wait..." She dropped the phone from her shoulder as she straightened up, eyes wide. Her hand reached up and caught the phone by reflex, no thought required. Smith. Oh god... what was she going to say? "Solace...?"  
  
She took a deep breath to make sure her voice was going to work. Suddenly she had so many things she wanted to say to him... she wanted to throttle him, she wanted to hug him, she wanted to slap him, she wanted to cry on his shoulder... "Smith?" Well, that was a start.  
  
"I... would like to see you. If you are willing."   
  
She didn't know what to think of that. It almost sounded like an invitation for a date, except that ... no, she just didn't know what to think of it. She didn't know what to say, and she knew she wouldn't know what to do when she saw him. Hell... for that matter... she hadn't realized it until that moment, but for a while there it had seemed as though she wouldn't really see him ever again. And now he wanted to see her...  
  
What was going on?  
  
"I would like to apologize..."   
  
Solace winced, thinking that he really did sound like an abusive personality. But then, even a non-abusive person would have had to apologize, after a performance like that. She should at least give him the benefit of the doubt, give him the chance. And besides... he was so incredibly alone... what must it be like for him? "All right..." she said slowly. "In the park?" Maybe the familiar setting would help them both.  
  
"At a restaurant...I will meet you there." Solace breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that at least if things went south she'd have her own way out. "Tomorrow night? Seven o'clock?"   
  
"All right..." Suddenly she just wanted to go home and get some rest.  
  
"I will see you there."  
  
"See you there."  
  
Long, awkward silence.   
  
"Thank you."  
  
She blinked. That... of all the things he could have said, that was both the most comforting and the most disconcerting. "You're welcome..." she murmured, wondering if this sudden chill was shock setting in. "See you tomorrow..."  
  
She hung up the phone, sat down, and stared at it for a very long time. All around her the noise and bustle of the bullpen seemed to fade, to disappear into the background. Her thoughts swirled around in her head, confusing her, sense and reason eluding her. The rest of the day went by on autopilot, and she unplugged as soon as she left work, trying to make sense of the past week.  
  
It didn't work. 


	34. Day Fifty One: Solace

A/N (I seem to be doing a lot of these lately): Tanathir, it's all right... Just being cautious. In the last few years I've been dealing more with the publishing world, and it's taught me careful habits.  
  
This note will be brief, I promise... I've written the chapter from Solace's point of view, but I thought I might continue the trend and write the same chapter from Smith's point of view. Comments?  
  
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For an AI, Smith was acting extraordinarily human.   
  
Solace had had to call him back to get directions to the restaurant and other such important details. Unfortunately he had realized at the same time that he'd missed giving out vital information, so their lines got jammed. Both were apologetic when they finally unsnarled the whole mess, but Smith's conciliatory, concerned tone had left her entirely speechless, so they hadn't talked over each other for nearly as long as she'd expected. And now this apology dinner, which started to seem more and more lavish as she stared around at the building, in the elevator, and over at the maitre d'. What the hell was going on?  
  
She gave her name and the hour of the dinner appointment to the man, was shown immediately to a table (one of the better tables) at which Smith was seated. He stood, as was proper for the approach of a lady, and Solace had the uncanny feeling that she had been thrown back several decades from the apparent time of the Matrix, to the roaring twenties, or the Belle Epoque. Smith's expression was blank-but-worried, his usual face when he was concerned or edgy but trying not to show it. She was worried too, however, and she had no such compunctions about letting that worry show on her face.   
  
The maitre d' left them alone for a few minutes. Normally this was when Solace would have expected a waiter to show up with a menu or a wine list, but she again had the sneaking impression that Smith had planned this out carefully. Hell, she knew he'd planned it out carefully, he was an AI. He could hardly do anything but. And now seemed to be the time he'd planned to make some sort of apology speech... but he couldn't. His hands twisted themselves into knots, fingers interlacing over the napkin, hesitant. A scowl would pass with sudden intensity over his face, probably symptomatic of his own inner logic telling him that such emotion and prevarication were a sure sign of degradation. It hurt just to watch him struggle.   
  
She reached out and laid her hands over his, turning them over and massaging his palms with her thumbs... it worked for humans. AIs were supposed to be wired the same as humans, and seemed to be. He looked over at her with astonishment and she stared right back at him, unafraid and full of compassion.   
  
He looked down. "I didn't think you would come..." he said slowly, jerkily, as though unwilling even to put so many words to whatever thoughts and feelings were ricocheting around in his mind.   
  
"I said I would..." she smiled slightly, but the smile fell as soon as it appeared. "Besides, you look like hell."  
  
"Thank you." The comment was dry, but lacked his usual humor.   
  
"What's wrong?"  
  
He looked down and sighed, an eerily human gesture that betrayed shaken vulnerability. "Everything."  
  
Hell. Maybe Julian was right. "Want to talk about it?"  
  
If he'd been human he would have been crying into his napkin and trying his damndest not to let her notice. As it was, his jaw clenched a little, and he stared down at the table. "I have... never been without the company of my ... co-workers... never been entirely alone before. The change in lifestyle is coming harder than I thought, and the ones I went to for help were, in fact, worse than useless." It seemed to give him a savage sort of glee to be able to refer to them as such. "I find that the change... the abrupt departure from what I had considered the norm... is making me... volatile."  
  
Volatile. That was a good word for it. It was making him downright testy, which was impressive for a collection of data pulses and wires. But stranger still was the fact that he was coming to her, a human, for help. The fact that he trusted her, the fact that he felt he could talk to her when he had been suddenly thrust into... she didn't even know what. She hadn't known Agents could be 'fired' and not deleted before. It suddenly occurred to her that the council might want to call her back once they read that particular report.  
  
... had all of this happened in just a couple of weeks? It was starting to seem very unreal.  
  
She pushed the thoughts aside as inconsequential for the moment and squeezed Smith's hands gently, trying to be reassuring. "You're not alone, you know. You have friends... we can help you, if you want us to. If you let us..." And at least some part of you recognizes that, she thought, because you came to me after whatever disaster happened that rainy day. You came to my apartment... I should have asked you to stay. Damn.  
  
He pulled his hands away. "But that is exactly the problem, you see." His tone was angry, although she wasn't sure if he was angry at her or at himself. "No one has ever said such things to me before. I have never had... what you would call a friend, I have never wanted or needed one."  
  
It was on the verge of her mind to say something like, how lonely, or, how sad... She knew better. She bit her lip, and said nothing.  
  
"I have never had the emotional capacity to feel this loneliness, or this sadness, before. Emotions were highly discouraged... especially the more benign or sedate emotions. So I am once again confronted by the alien, the unknown, that which I do not understand nor wish to understand. I don't want your sympathy, and I don't want your pity..." his face curdled into anger as he spoke, eyes flashing.  
  
Solace sat perfectly still, as though if she moved he would pounce upon her and eat her.  
  
"And yet... I find that living without it... living without some form of emotional nourishment... is unsustainable. Now that I am away from my colleagues, I cannot live by hate alone." He looked down at the table, then over at her, blue intensity faded to gray dullness. "Does that seem right to you?"  
  
Solace took a deep breath, trying to figure out what to say. This problem had layers upon layers of complexity, and she wasn't sure whether to treat him as a human or an AI. The hell with it. "Actually, Smith, yes it does." Her voice was calm, steady, betraying none of the uneasiness and terror she felt inside.   
  
"Think about it. You've been thrust entirely out of your element, not once, but twice. You've been thrown into a world that probably hates and fears you... very few people like the feds... and you've had all the restrictions of your previous life removed. It's like a dam suddenly being taken away and all of that water suddenly released from all of that pressure comes shooting down through the canyon with tremendous force. Not only do you no longer have to answer to your superiors, you no longer have the stabilizing influence of your co-workers, other people you respect and understand as familiar and identical to you... at least in their tasks. You don't have to maintain the emotionless face anymore. So not only do you have that loss of purpose that comes with suddenly being let go, you also have all of the emotions that go with it... the despair, loss of self-worth, feelings of hopelessness... only since you're not used to dealing with them you have them tenfold."  
  
He blinked.  
  
"As for coming to see me... I imagine that was reflex. I was probably the only person you had had extended contact with outside of work, and since you no longer had those avenues available to you, you came to me. Probably there was some aspect of it as well that said that I was outside of your workplace, I had lived with emotions all my life and knew how to deal with them, so I could help with that problem in specific, as well as whatever problems you could think of in general."  
  
He sighed, slumping over. Solace blinked. She hadn't expected that kind of reaction.  
  
"... Smith..." she reached out to touch his shoulder. "It's going to be okay..."  
  
"How do you know?" his head jerked up, eyes ablaze with fury. "How can you even have the faintest idea of what is going on? Never in your life have you experienced the world in the way I do. How can you say that you know it is going to be 'okay,' when you haven't the barest idea of what is going on..."  
  
She reached out and squeezed his hands, more than a little afraid. At least here, in this public place... he probably wouldn't try anything. They were drawing attention of the folk at the head table, not to mention stares from tables around them. "Smith, I don't. I can't. I don't know what you're going through, but I do know that right now you're afraid. You're experiencing a lot of new sensations, and trust me, I do know what that's like. I know what the alienation is like."  
  
He blinked at her, and the world seemed to ripple for a second. No déjà vu, though. So probably no drastic changes to the Matrix. "What..." and his voice was more subdued now. "What happened to you?"  
  
She looked away and pulled back, uncomfortable with even the thought of telling him that she was unplugged. "I'd... rather not talk about it." She hoped that would be enough to convince him that she knew what she was talking about.  
  
He sat back and stared at her for a little while. Solace thought he was considering what to do or say, but his eyes were more blank than usual and she couldn't tell. She felt miserable that she couldn't help him, and fiddled with her napkin a little as she tried to think of something else she could do, something she could say, anything to make it better. Anything to make the bad go away.   
  
Smith looked down and to the side, so suddenly that she thought for a second that he'd dropped something. His shoulders seemed to shake, a human gesture of tension and confusion. After a minute or too he looked back at her.   
  
"I..." he took a deep breath. Solace reached out, but didn't take his hands just yet. "I am sorry. I am... not the most stable of creatures at the moment. You are right... this is a ... this is not a good time for me. I ..." he snarled the word. "...feel... as though I have been cast adrift, and I am not used to having nothing solid to stand on. For the most part it makes me angry, these feelings of helplessness and this inability to control my emotions. I have blamed a number of people for it... I have blamed you... but I have no one to really blame, but myself."  
  
She winced, down deep inside, at that particular revelation. If he had really blamed her he could have killed her very easily. And how was Tank going to explain that to the council?   
  
"I ... I don't know what to do. And I do not like the feeling, because I have always known what to do, in any situation. The interview with ... it did not go well. At all. Not only did they have no useful information for me they derided me for my inability to survive... they ..." he trailed off.  
  
Solace blinked. AIs, it seemed, were as vicious and cruel as young teenagers. Now she did pull his hands back into her grip and squeeze them gently, reassuring, stroking the backs of his wrists with her fingertips. "People are cruel..." she said softly, thinking out loud, hoping some of it would help. "And people are prone to be scared. When they see someone has failed, especially in a situation where they have failed as well or where they think they might fail in the same way, they lash out. Because it reminds them of their own inability to succeed, inability to recover... or because they are afraid that the proximity of the failure... like an aura, or a bad smell, they fear it might taint them. It's hard, it's mean, and it's not pretty... but it's true."  
  
Smith scowled. "Not for us. It is not true for us... we are not subject to those frailties."  
  
"Everyone is subject to those frailties. Every human being..." she trailed off. It hurt, almost physically, how much she wanted to explain it to him in words he could understand, or at least comprehend. But she couldn't risk revealing her knowledge or her status to him.   
  
"I..." he struggled with words, and she knew what he was trying not to say.  
  
"You are built like a human being," she settled on, "No matter how much you may be trained, raised, or taught not to react like one. You may have learned emotionlessness, but your body is still wired for emotions. They are still there, no matter how deeply buried they might be. The equipment is still there... the chemical reactions, endorphines, everything."   
  
His fingers dug into her hands, almost to the point of being painful. "Then why, if it is my own body, can I not control it?"  
  
She sighed. That was always the question. "I don't know. Maybe it's not meant to be controlled. Probably part of it is because you're not used to having to use fine control. Suppression is a lot easier than management, but it also requires a lot less finesse."  
  
He scowled. "I don't ..." sighed. "I don't want to control it. I want it to go away."  
  
She didn't have anything she could say to that, except to hold his hands and try to be reassuring without words. They sat, hunched over, heads almost touching for a little while; it seemed as though he was trying to touch her every way he could and trying not to be near her for a little while. Finally the tension eased, and they both inched back to sit more straight, more normally. Smith looked at a point over her shoulder, and she was about to turn around before she realized he was signaling the waiter. Solace felt herself relax slowly, breathing out a long and shuddering sigh.   
  
"Oh..." Smith said, thinking of something suddenly. She looked over at him, startled. "I would recommend against trying the cake, here. It is quite good... but can have some unexpected after-effects. The tiramisu, on the other hand, is quite exquisite..." 


	35. Day Fifty One: Smith

A/N: Because at least a couple people have asked so far… yes, I have been published, I do… I guess… sort of write professionally: I have a column on FicPress.com.   
  
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He hated uncertainty, always had. It wasn't in the nature of anything mechanical, mathematical, to be any sort of an advocate for leaving things up to chance. It was one of the many things about his newfound emotions that was bothering him. It was one of the chief elements in humanity that he despised, that randomness of action and word and thought.   
  
Despite the fact that they had agreed upon a meeting place and time, there was always the chance that she would decide not to come. There was the chance that one of her friends would talk her out of it… increased, he was forced to admit to himself, by his behavior at the party she had attended. That had, he'd eventually decided, been a serious mistake. One of the many things he would have to apologize for, or try and explain. She was a surprisingly sensible woman, for a human. She would understand. She had to understand.   
  
She was there. Standing at the door, then walking over to the table, looking rather fancy considering her usual mode of dress (and very beautiful, a corner of his mind whispered to him) and not a little worried. For herself? Or did she find the resources, even now, even after all he had done, to worry for him? Why did human women find themselves drawn so often to men who had physically attacked them? Humans were so irrational. He stood, automatically; it was only polite, after all. The maitre d' sat her at the table, and Smith tried to think of something to say.  
  
He couldn't. Despite the fact that he could speak every language known to man, had the full vocabulary of every dialect available to him, there was no guideline or rule that could help him in this situation. He tried for something, anything, a word or a glance or a gesture that would start him off in what he wanted to say. Did he even know what he wanted to say? He knew what was appropriate, but what did he want? For that matter, was it even relevant, what he wanted? It had to be, because it was all he had. Joe had pointed out, and rightly, that now that he was no longer bound by the constraints of his work all he had was the fulfillment of his wants and desires. That was the only purpose he had left in the world.  
  
He scowled. Smith had his suspicions about Joe.   
  
Everything was so confusing. The emotions, the lack of direction, the scorn from the Merovingian's doppelganger bodyguards (and something about them nagged in his mind, a dissonance of vision, a migraine headache just to look at them), the constant problem of Solace. The rapidity with which everything was happening. It was all so intense, so overwhelming. He didn't know what to do or which way to turn, and it was so tiring to be trying to figure out everything all the time, how to react, what to do, what to say… how to survive. The Agents weren't coming after him yet, but soon, oh so soon they would. And what would he do then? Hide behind Solace, a human? He hadn't even thought…  
  
"I didn't think you would come…"  
  
The words came out slowly, each syllable enunciated. It was a struggle just to speak in a single human language right now, so many thoughts whirling around in his brain faster than human comprehension, and he had to filter them just to get them out in a format that she could understand.  
  
"I said I would…" she smiled just a little bit, just for a second. "Besides, you look like hell."  
  
That was not a compliment. And yet he knew that somehow it was supposed to be an expression of worry, flippant so that the gravity of the situation would not have to be addressed, not yet. It was an odd sort of honor that she thought she could be so with him. "Thank you."   
  
"What's wrong?"  
  
Now she asked. Now, finally, after so many days, she asked. And he didn't know how to answer. "Everything."  
  
"Want to talk about it?"  
  
He knew she would accept no for an answer. Even Joe had said as much, betraying a knowledge of the woman he hadn't known the homeless madman had possessed. It was the most reassuring fact about the whole thing, and in a blinding flash of insight he realized why she had seemed to be the stabilizing influence on most, at least, of her friends. She would take no for an answer, and she would listen, and she would not judge. She might not have an answer that would be acceptable… but it was perhaps her best quality, that she could be the sounding board for one's problems, listening and never telling.  
  
He frowned. How tiring that must be.  
  
And now that it had come he wasn't sure he could explain it to her. Not without betraying all the secrets of the Matrix. No matter how silent she could be, that was written into his programming, hardwired not to tell. His jaw clenched, he twisted all available fabric into knots, trying to figure out what to do. "I have…" He could temporize, sidestep the issue, rephrase the problem. It seemed to work. "… never been entirely alone before…" Words began to spill out of him along that vein, and he started to burble his problems, his confusion to her.  
  
It was easier than he had expected. Once the conversation had started, once the stream of speech had started to flow, it was so much easier. They debated back and forth, and no matter how upset or angry or emotional he seemed to get she was always calm, always there. She didn't flee, she didn't scream or yell or lose her temper. Slowly, very slowly, they were both learning to deal with each other.  
  
In a way that was a good thing. Smith had decided yesterday that he would have to cultivate the relationship with her; after all, there was really no one else but her and the mad homeless man. In a way it was an incredibly bad thing. He would become irreversibly contaminated, humanized, flawed. But then, he didn't really have a choice anymore. He had to adapt or be deleted. He had to learn how to control the new elements of his life, or die. Her own words were echoing his thoughts.  
  
"I don't…" he sighed, accepting the truth of it. "I don't want to control it. I want it to go away."  
  
That seemed to end that part of the conversation. She didn't really have any idea how to respond to him, he was rapidly discovering, but perhaps that was a good thing. He'd already discovered a long time ago that human beings tended to take each other for granted. She, he thought smugly, would never take him for granted. He signaled one of the (human? Programmed?) waiters in the restaurant, warning her away from the Merovingian's tricks as he did so. The self-styled AI lordling would probably hate him for it, but it gave Smith a peculiar sort of satisfaction to deny the effete would-be Frenchman.   
  
"Joe said you spoke to him the other day," Solace commented in what she probably felt was a subtle manner, poking at her salad to stir the dressing around.   
  
Smith nodded slowly. "I … well, I wasn't sure who else to talk to." He frowned. "For a man who is supposedly mentally deficient, he was astonishingly insightful."  
  
"Dissasociative," she corrected, but with no real heat. "He's not deficient, he just… has more people inside his head than just himself, I suppose. That's the popular term for it these days, anyway, is dissasociative identity disorder."  
  
Smith nodded. "Formerly multiple personality disorder. I don't particularly think either name is an appropriate summation of the disease, but…"  
  
"True. Well, the point being, Joe's as intelligent as you or I. He just has more difficulty coping with other people"  
  
Smith frowned slightly, poking at his own food as he pretended to eat it. "I…" what was that peculiarly human phrase… "I know how he feels."  
  
Solace frowned too, and Smith suddenly realized that he had given her the impression that he, too, was suffering the same mental disorder. "Being alienated from everyone because of an innate condition…" then it occurred to him. He waited a second and then asked, more gently than he had meant to. "Is that what you meant by your own alienating experiences?"  
  
"Something like that." She took a deep breath. Let it out again, and was silent. How hard was this going to be for her? What should he do? "I…" He would emulate her behavior. It seemed to be… was… deeply reassuring. For other humans. "I was born with a mild form of autism. It… back then it wasn't as well studied as it is now. No one had a name for it, or really knew what it was. It wasn't… really… enough to keep me isolated from other children, but…" she smiled weakly. "Well, it explained the name anyway. Sol, ace, both words that are fancied-up names for being alone."  
  
He waited, listening patiently. Trying to think of what it must have been like for her. Wishing he had easier access to the Mainframe to study autism, and what form of it she might have suffered from.   
  
"My parents didn't know what to do and, being hippies, their solutions usually involved drugs or crystals. It was … they meant well. But it didn't really work, and only increased my feelings of alienation, that the world wasn't what it really was. After a long time… when I was fourteen... I was actually playing by myself at school when this kid came up to me and asked if… well, if I had a problem. Later that week they took me to this… facility…" she smiled, happier now, more at ease. "It's been pretty good ever since."  
  
Smith had absolutely no idea what to say to that. "You did not miss the company of others?"  
  
She shrugged. "I had no idea what the company of others meant. To me, I was living in a different world that just happened to overlap with everyone else's. I didn't know what lonely meant because my default state was to be alone. I didn't know that what I was experiencing… well, it wasn't normal, but it was treatable. I wasn't beyond help."  
  
Smith stared at her. Perhaps she did know what it was like. He had never considered autism before, or any other kind of mental/emotional disorder, but that was quite probably what he seemed like to other humans… a human with some sort of mental disorder. What was that word someone had … Solace had used to describe his emotional inability? Sociopathy… "Were you tested for sociopathic tendencies?"  
  
She nodded. "I barely squeaked out of being put in a … well, my mother called it a home to prevent budding serial killers. They all through I was going to grow up to be an utterly ruthless psychotic multiple murderer of some kind. They said I thought the rules didn't apply to me…" Her smile was small, and utterly lacking in humor. "Well, it was true, I guess. In my world, their rules didn't exist."  
  
Physical contact. It was comforting, reassuring. He reached out and took her hands as she'd done with him earlier. "Human beings are very much bound by their own societal rules…" he started, "And inclined to be afraid of anyone or anything that calls those rules into question…" It didn't sound like what he was supposed to say, but it was all he could offer.   
  
"I know…" she smiled, squeezed his hands. "It's just…"  
  
"You seem to be doing quite well at the moment. There is nothing untoward or different about you…" Damn. That wasn't right either. "Nothing different, that is, to your detriment." Stupid human languages.  
  
She did chuckle, though. "You mean, I look and act perfectly normal. Thanks, Smith…" she smiled "That may be the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me."  
  
She didn't lie terribly well, but it was a polite fiction, and it would have been rude not to let the topic go. Besides, their food had arrived, and Smith had to make himself busy pretending to eat the computer-generated food. Somewhere, in one of those monstrously huge columns of pods and goo and human bodies, a tube was feeding her nutrients derived from deceased humans. And here, in the Matrix, she thought she was having venison. He wondered what she would have thought if he had told her. Briefly, so fast that the thought was gone just before it had registered completely, he wished he could have given her the real thing.   
  
"This is an absolutely beautiful restaurant…" she said after a bit, gently changing the subject. "Did you also chase a terrorist into the building?"  
  
He smiled, thinking of how he could paint the Merovingian in the most humorous possible light. "Actually, this restaurant is run by an old employee…"   
  
The conversation turned to other, lighter matters. The rest of the evening was the most pleasant Smith had experienced in what seemed like a very long time. 


	36. Dis

A/N: Okay.. I've got the rest of the story outlined out, and it's a pretty tight fit. So if you want to see anything happening with any of the characters, now would be the time to suggest it! Other than the kissing scenes. Which I promise I'll get to soon…  
  
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Solace was hitting the punching bag till her knuckles bled through the rags around her hands. It wasn't making her feel much better, but the pain burning through her hands and up her arms was starting to become intense enough to distract her. Jokes with Tank aside, the strange and worrying circumstances were starting to pile up around her and overwhelm her. The argument with Agent Smith, the fact that she couldn't put him out of her mind for more than half an hour at a time. Tank's injury, and the resulting sickness that would eventually kill him… she still couldn't figure out how that one had got past everyone. Probably the confusion following Morpheus's capture, maybe with a healthy dose of survivor's guilt for having lived where Dozer, Apoc, and Switch had died.  
  
… Switch.  
  
Her eyes clouded over with tears again. She slammed the punching bag so hard it spun around and slammed her in the side, knocking her back into the bulkhead, hard. Deep breaths, gasping for air. She sat on the bench next to her and dropped her head to her hands, exhausted.  
  
"The recluse emerges from her cave. And here I thought we'd seen the last of you till we got back to Zion."  
  
Dis.  
  
Her face contorted into a snarl that she had to have learned from Agent Smith. Other than that brief expenditure of energy, though, she didn't move. "Aren't you supposed to be on watch?" she muttered in a deceptively soft voice.  
  
"Ended fifteen minutes ago," he shrugged. "You've been down here for three hours."  
  
Three hours. She didn't remember being down here for three hours. But then there wasn't really any way to tell time except for the big clock in the cockpit, or the terminals in the war room. "Oh."  
  
"What's up?" Dis asked, and this time she did look up in startlement. He was rarely friendly to any of the other crew-members, adopting a position of smug arrogance and superiority instead. None of the rest of the crew was really sure what had caused Morpheus to accept his application to fill the empty crew spots, or even what had prompted him to apply. To all outward appearances he was a misogynistic, arrogant bastard whose skill and speed within the Matrix made him tolerable, if not necessarily well-liked.   
  
"Nothing… just… thinking. A little at loose ends, with the experiment over."  
  
Dis sat himself down on the bench across the room, idly kicking at the punching bag with one foot. "Kind of like you don't have a purpose anymore, or like you've forgotten what it is. Your problem is you've gotten so wrapped up in your old job you can't figure out how to transition from that to the new one."  
  
It was more words than Dis had ever strung together without throwing in something lecherous, rude, or condescending. Solace leaned back and slumped with her shoulders against the bulkhead and stared at him. "When did you get to be so smart?"  
  
He smirked. Now, that was more like it. "You never bothered to listen when I told you what I used to do for a living, did you?"  
  
"Not really." Her tone was dry, bored, in anticipation of another long story extolling his virtues and skills.  
  
"I worked for MI-5… one of their best agents." It was the sort of answer she had come to expect from him… and yet it did explain a lot. His casual, preening tone seemed to almost parody itself as he spoke. "Felix Leiter, James Bond, very hush-hush. That sort of thing."   
  
"I get the idea, thanks."   
  
Dis frowned. "I'm serious."  
  
Sol shrugged. "I never said you weren't."  
  
He frowned, not sure what to make of that, and decided to ignore it. "Anyway. The point being… I have an idea what it's like. You've gotten too caught up in the role. You've gotten too wrapped up in what you were doing then. You've forgotten what you're supposed to be doing now, and you feel strange… like when you were first unplugged. That sense of alienation."  
  
She was starting to tune him out, and the sudden jerk back to his speech-making was almost physically jarring. "What?"  
  
He smirked. "I'm right, aren't I?"  
  
Damn him, anyway. "Sort of…" she looked away.  
  
Dis shrugged slightly. "You really should just let it go. Take a vacation. Give it a rest. Relax somehow, somewhere that doesn't remind you of what you used to do and what you should be doing."  
  
Hell. Maybe the man had a point. Solace stood up, stretching and wincing slightly as her shoulder and upper arm muscles screamed out in protest at being moved. "You could be right…" She started to unwrap her hands. Dis practically leaped forward, snapping up the chance to peel off the makeshift protective bandages and give her little caresses over her hands as she did so. "Dis…" she sighed.  
  
"Yes?"   
  
"Stop that. I'm really not in the mood…"  
  
He just smiled that annoyingly superior Dis-knows-best smile and kept unwrapping. He did, however, stop touching her in entirely inappropriate, intimate ways. "Sure."  
  
She grabbed the bandages and started walking away from him as soon as he'd completely unwrapped them. The showers, water recycling units, condensation catchers were just down the hall. With any luck he'd stay in the cobbled-together gym and spend some time punching his own frustrations out, whatever they were. Right now Solace wasn't in the mood to deal with anyone, even Neo, even Tank, and most certainly not Dis.  
  
No such luck. He followed her down to the showers, and watched as she meticulously scrubbed the scrapes on her knuckles clean.  
  
"Dis…" she sighed. "The effort is appreciated. Honestly. But I'd really just rather be alone right now."  
  
"Sol…" he mimicked her sigh. "Honey, I know how you feel. Honestly. But that's the last thing I should do right now. You shouldn't be left alone, not with the way you're thinking."  
  
One eye rolled to glare in his direction. "And just how do you know what I'm thinking?"  
  
"Because I've been there. Really. I have. And as much as you may not like to admit it, I know what you're going through. You need more than just a good workout to distract you. At least…" he touched her shoulder. "Not that kind of workout."  
  
She slapped his arm away. "Give it a rest, Dis."   
  
"Seriously, kiddo. You need to lighten up. Relax. Do something other than beat yourself up over what you've been doing for the past few months for a change…" He touched her hair. She pulled away.  
  
"Fine. I'll figure out something to do. I'll prune some goddamn bonsai. Just… leave me alone."  
  
"Sol…" He put his arms around her and hugged her. "I'm serious." It actually sounded serious, for once, instead of lewd or suggestive. She sighed and hugged him back, hoping he was just trying to be friendly or lighten the mood. They stood there for a little while, and he didn't move, and Solace started to think that maybe they'd all misjudged him. Maybe he wasn't as bad as he acted… or maybe he'd just gotten used to acting like a jerk. Or maybe they'd all gotten used to him acting like a jerk, so it just went around in a vicious cycle. She didn't know. Did it really matter? They'd all gotten so caught up in their patterns of behavior… Morpheus with his obsession with the One, Neo with his confusion over being the object of that obsession, Tank with his morbid humor at his own imminent demise… her with her fascination with the nature of humanity, and where the AIs fit in. Maybe they'd just all gotten lost in themselves.   
  
And then she blinked as she realized she'd gotten so lost in her thoughts that she'd completely failed to notice Dis' mouth kissing her forehead, her temple, her cheek… She pulled her head back, annoyed. "Okay, I just needed the hug, Dis. I don't need you coming on like some sort of romance hero…"  
  
"Come on, Sol…" he murmured into her ear, stroking her hair again. "It's not like…"  
  
She knew… she just knew… that the next words out of his mouth were going to be the same old thing, some sort of misogynistic crap that got tossed around in romance novels and bad suspense movies and the Skinemax flicks that were shown late at night on weekends. Angrily she twisted out of his grip and backed up. "Okay, now you've run out of leeway. Either stop hitting on me or…"  
  
He grabbed her by the shoulders and kissed her. Gently, but his fingers were digging into her shoulders. She brought her knee up, he twisted aside as though anticipating her move, and she twisted with the movement and snap-kicked him in the groin.  
  
"Back off…"   
  
His head came up to glare at her as he doubled over, eyes blazing hectic blue that reminded her, oddly, of Smith. Why was she thinking… the momentary distraction was enough for Dis to bear-tackle her, knocking her into the bulkhead.   
  
"Okay…" he growled, "That was just uncalled for…"   
  
For one split second she thought, panicked and writhing, that he was going to try and rape her. Instead he just picked her up by the shoulders and shook her, and the relief was so strong that at first she couldn't respond, couldn't fight back. Then anger took over.  
  
"Oh, and your groping me wasn't?" she threw her arms up and inwards, then slammed them out, breaking his grip. Creativity of motion failed her; she settled for simply punching him in the face. "You're such a jerk…"  
  
He punched her back. "And you're awfully frigid for someone so young," he taunted. She rubbed her jaw and kicked him in the back of the knee, sending him stumbling.   
  
"Frigid??" Her other knee came up, into his jaw, rattling his teeth. "You're a damn whore… who the hell are you to call me…"  
  
He grabbed her thigh and pushed upwards, sending her backwards onto the floor. "Psychotic…"  
  
She rolled to one side and kicked out, somehow managing to connect with his ribs. "Slut…"  
  
The namecalling lasted only a couple seconds longer. The fight lasted for several minutes. There was none of the artistry or grace of the in-Matrix battles. It was a pure knock-down drag-out tavern brawl, spent mostly rolling around on the floor trying to gouge at eyes or punch sensitive bits. Solace hadn't been in a physical fistfight like this since she was twelve. It was, oddly enough, as refreshing as punching the bag had been… and much more satisfying.  
  
Even as she was thinking it, somewhere in the middle of the fight Dis began to tickle her ribs. She squirmed, screeched, and tried to retaliate. Her knee ended up connecting, not with his groin again, but with his inner thigh. Gasping, he rolled off of her.   
  
"What the hell was that for?" she asked, irritable but still unable to stop giggling.  
  
"Feel…" he took several deep breaths, trying to regain his powers of speech. "Feel better?"  
  
She blinked. "Oddly… yeah. I do."  
  
"Good…" he closed his eyes. "I'd hate to have gone through all that for nothing."  
  
"… you mean all that crap… earlier… it was all a pose?"   
  
He sat up, rubbing his head, checking himself over for sore spots or scratches. "Mostly, yeah. I wasn't kidding… I do have some idea of what's happening to you. But I figured, getting angry at someone who deserved it was a pretty good way to cure you for a few hours, at least." He tossed his mop of hair back from his eyes and stared at her owlishly. "I'm not as much of a jerk as I act, you know."  
  
She pushed herself up to a sitting position and arched eyebrows at him. "Really?"  
  
Shrug. "Mostly."  
  
Solace frowned. Maybe her earlier assessment had been right. Maybe they'd just all started to work off of reflex, assumption, rather than actual thought. "Maybe…" she thought out loud... "Maybe I misjudged you."  
  
"Don't beat yourself up about it. Everyone does." They dragged themselves to their feet, wincing as they stretched bruised ribs or aching backs. "At least you're feeling better."  
  
The sheer absurdity of the whole situation alone would have made her feel better, even if the distraction of the physical pain from both workouts didn't. "Thanks…" she murmured, thinking.   
  
He grabbed her lightly by the face and kissed her square on the mouth, then stepped back out of range of either hands or feet before she could react. The trademark smirk had returned. "I'll be back to collect later, when you're feeling better," he retorted, winking.  
  
She sighed, rolled her eyes, and turned her back on him. "Some things never do change, do they?"   
  
"Are you kidding? And miss out on all that fun?" He didn't follow her as she walked away, for which she was deeply grateful. "Keep me in mind if you need another distraction, will you?" He called after her.  
  
"Sure," she muttered as she headed back up to her room. "Right up there with playing chicken with the squidees. Crazy bastard."  
  
But she did feel better. 


	37. Day Fifty Two

Dawn was starting to creep over the horizon as Solace drove home in a cloud of wonder and delight. She had never thought, never in her wildest dreams, that spending a night out with an Agent… former Agent… at a restaurant that was very probably another creation of the computers that ran Matrix… would be so much fun! The food, despite the knowledge that it was just so much data, artificial input for her senses, was exquisite. The whole atmosphere had been one of casual, elegant self-indulgence. There had even been a little dancing, towards the end of the evening, when nearly all of the humans had departed and the only really substantial group left was the head of the restaurant and his entourage, men and women who Solace was sure were some sort of program.  
  
They had to be. Smith had very nearly said as much, when he had said that the restaurant was run by an old employee, not from his same department but a similar function. Old employee of the same firm most definitely meant a program. Different department. She had no idea what that meant… the function of the Agent AIs was to track down and kill or otherwise eliminate the threat of the resistance. Different department. That would mean that the AIs had a different function. But what?  
  
It didn't matter. Solace laughed gaily as she spun the car into the parking spot. For now… for the moment, the Matrix could all just not exist for her. She would just be another young woman, coming home after a wonderful night out. She would go up to her apartment, take a nap, and then unplug in several hours. Or perhaps the other way around. Whichever. The events of the evening were already starting to take on a sort of indistinguishable, enjoyable blur. She couldn't remember if the sort of vague introductions to the head of the restaurant had occurred before or after dessert, if the first dance to the slightly bluesy music had occurred before or after…   
  
She smiled. Best not to think too long on it.  
  
The smile dropped from her lips, turning into a puzzled frown as she walked through the parking lot and over to the lobby of her building. Someone was in the lobby arguing with the concierge; someone who looked like Resistance, but from the back could really have been anyone. Solace stopped where she was, taking a deep breath and offering up a little prayer to whatever gods still existed that it was just some punk kid coming back from their own sort of night on the town. Someone else whose tastes ran to excessive amounts of leather and vinyl.   
  
No such luck. As she walked into the lobby and nodded to the concierge the man turned. Kerr.   
  
"Sol, I have to talk to you."  
  
"We have nothing to talk about." She pushed past him, tried to freeze him out with body language alone. It didn't work. It rarely had.   
  
"Sol, I'm serious. It's important."   
  
"If it's important you can talk to me about it at work." She didn't want to say 'on the ship' even in the hallway… you never knew, after all, when the Agents were watching. "You don't need to come to my home and wait for me and ambush me right before I go to bed."   
  
"It's about your new boyfriend…"  
  
She whirled on him. "Okay, first of all, he's not my boyfriend. You know damn well he is not, and could never be anything like that. Second of all, you know damn well what's going on, and you know damn well that your hanging around could get me killed. So just stay the hell out of it, stay the hell away, before you do something we both regret."  
  
He kept a couple paces back after that display of temper, but didn't leave entirely. Solace opened her door violently and nearly slammed it shut in his face; he put a hand out to stop it and went in, closing it with less force behind him. "Solace, we need to talk."  
  
"No, Kerr, we really don't.'  
  
"Yes, we do. We need to talk, and you know exactly why. You're bordering on treason here.."  
  
She laughed, and it sounded harsh and bitter and full of sharp edges and emotions. "Treason? Listen to yourself, Kerr, you sound like an eighteenth century soldier. This may be a war, but it's not the kind you can define with lines on a map. I haven't turned in any fellows to the AIs. I haven't implicated anyone else in this madcap scheme, and I haven't betrayed anyone's existence or location. There's no treason here, Kerr." Just a lunatic experiment that's getting me in deeper all the time. But you don't need to know that.  
  
"Oh really. How long do you think it will be before you start taking their side? I've seen you, Sol. You never used to be this friendly with Agents."  
  
She stared at him. "Yes, but… that's the point, isn't it? Or don't you remember that part of the speech? The point is to be friendly to the Agents, to see if there's something there beyond or besides their singleminded programmed purpose. And if there is, to encourage sedition and defectors in their ranks. Not ours."  
  
"You can't have it both ways, Sol. You can't get close to them without them getting close to you. I told you this was a bad idea from the beginning."  
  
"I know that, Kerr. But you don't think the experiment will succeed at all. So, frankly, I don't even know why you bothered trying to talk me out of it."  
  
Kerr scowled. "I should have tried harder, then. Now you're going to take us all down with you."  
  
Despite her instinct that he was just bluffing, grandstanding to try and get her to back down and see things his way, something in his voice made her blood run cold. "What are you talking about?"  
  
"We've been keeping an eye on Smith… really, we've been keeping an eye on the Agents. And they've been keeping an eye on Smith. A close eye. And on everyone he comes into contact with. You've been the person he's had the most contact with so far… really, he's only had contact with five people."  
  
"Five?"  
  
Kerr nodded, looking even more grim … as though that were possible. "And of the five, you're in a category by yourself. The other four… I don't know what's going on with them, but the Agents talk about them like they're something different, something big."  
  
The other AIs. So Kerr didn't know. Either that or there was something else, some hidden connotation to the 'employee' business that they were both missing. Either way… "You think they've found out that I'm not plugged in to the system?"  
  
"Not yet. I think all they know is that you're anomalous for some reason. And at the Agent's level, apparently they don't have instant access to everyone who's plugged into the system except for purposes of jumping into the host bodies. So they haven't figured out that you're anything other than what you seem to be… yet. None of them have taken the chance of trying to jump into you either. I guess they don't want to scare Smith off."  
  
Solace felt the muscles in her face twitch before she could suppress all reaction. She hadn't even thought of that… that some Agent program might try to jump into her as they jumped from body to body to catch the unplugged Resistance members. She also had managed to put out of her mind the fact that Smith was actually an invader in someone else's body, and the thought was not a pleasant one.   
  
"So basically you're telling me that I'm too close. That I should back off."  
  
Kerr sighed, sounding as though he were frustrated with some recalcitrant child who wouldn't go to bed on time. She wanted to smack him for it. "I'm saying that this whole experiment is a bust. What have you discovered, really? That Agents can be fired? What happens to old programs when they become obsolete? The information's helpful, Sol… really, it is, but we could have found that out any one of a number of other ways. The real reason you're here… your real hypothesis hasn't been proven at all. You really should just give it up and come back home before you're discovered."  
  
Patronizing little… "Kerr, I think you'd better leave before you yourself give me away. Right now you're the only thing linking me to the Resistance that Smith knows about, and he thinks I don't know what you get up to in the Matrix. He's told me that you're part of a terrorist organization, and that he's put an alert out for you."  
  
Kerr flushed, angry. "You told him about…"  
  
"I told him that I hadn't had any contact with you for a long time, and that I was probably the last person you'd try to get ahold of for any purpose other than to get back together with me. Which, actually, I thought would be the case. And I'm still not sure I'm wrong about that." She glared, all the more worried by the fact that he wasn't denying it. "So why don't you stay out of the Matrix for a while, give things a chance to calm down. Hopefully, after a while, he'll forget about you. Either that or the experiment will be over, on my terms…" she raised her voice and punctuated each of the last few words with a finger stabbing into his chest. "And it'll be safe for both of us to come back."  
  
Kerr stared at her in dismay, frustration, and growing anger. "You haven't been listening to a thing I've been saying…"  
  
"Yes, I have…"  
  
"You have no idea what you're doing.." Voices raised.   
  
"Yes, I have, Kerr, your enthusiasm is touching, it's also futile. I have sanction for what I'm doing, I'm perfectly aware of the consequences, and frankly I think I'm in a better position to know when I'm in danger than you are. You're emotionally biased and you're paranoid."  
  
"Bullshit!" he yelled. "That's bullshit, Sol. Maybe this experiment had some sort of value in the beginning but by now your judgment is completely clouded and you're just using this as an excuse to indulge yourself in the Matrix because you can't stand it in the real world. You can't stand that all the real people are out on the outside where it's gray and dark and you're spending all your time here in the sun, burying your head in the sand…"  
  
"This goddamn experiment could give us the edge we need to win the war, you idiot!"  
  
"This isn't an experiment, Sol, it's a junket. This is you taking any official excuse you can get for a pleasure cruise. You need to shape up, you need to come back, and you need to remember who and what you are, and what you're fighting for."  
  
"I know what I'm fighting for," she snarled, her voice gone quiet again. She was almost to the point of tears, hands clenched into white-knuckle fists, half-moon marks on her palms where her nails were digging into the skin. "I've always known. It's you who never understood, Kerr. And you couldn't stand it that I had more faith than you did."  
  
"I'm fighting for our daughter," he practically spat it in her face. "What did you have in mind?"  
  
She hit him. Blind, helpless fury took over, and she moved with the preternatural speed of the unplugged, never mind the fact that Smith or someone else in the building could have walked through the unlocked door at any moment. It wasn't even an elegant hit, either, just a barroom punch, a roundhouse to the side of the jaw. It did the job at least. Kerr staggered back, rubbing his jaw and glaring at her in shocked and angry surprise.   
  
"What the hell…"  
  
"Don't play those goddamn games with me, Kerr. Don't you ever play those goddamn mind games with me. You wanted her, and rather than subject her to years of fighting I let you take her. Don't you ever dare imagine I don't care for her as much as you do. Sole custody was your choice, not mine."  
  
"You stayed away because you couldn't handle being a real goddamn human being, for once."  
  
"I stayed away because I didn't want her to have to see us beating the crap out of each other."  
  
"You can't handle your feelings for any human being…"  
  
"And you can't handle your temper. You can't even keep a goddamn grip on reality."  
  
This time he was the one to hit her, a full and open-handed slap upside the head that sent her sprawling. It was designed to humiliate, she knew… but she'd also had enough of that kind of treatment at his hands. She rolled with it, swinging her leg around and sweeping him to the ground. The second part of the move didn't go nearly as well; she tried to keep a foot on his chest, keep him down, but he upended her onto the floor. Her head hit the table hard enough to make her see spots, and she yelped.   
  
Kerr stopped. He didn't always know when to stop, she thought ruefully, but at least he stopped now. "You're a cold, heartless bitch, Solace." His voice was perfectly calm. A sociopath's voice, she thought with a shiver. "You're more like a machine than a real, human woman. I guess that's why you prefer them to us."  
  
He was gone before she could stand up and open her mouth to retort, although the brief bout of physical combat had taken most of the fight out of her. Angrily she slammed the door behind him, remembering to actually lock it this time. The cell phone on her table began ringing almost as soon as she had.  
  
"Solace…"  
  
"Hey… " It was Tank. "I saw what happened. Are you okay?"  
  
She sighed. Her head felt horrible, and she even felt a little nauseous. The ironically bad ending to an otherwise perfect evening. And no nap, either. Damn. "I'll be okay eventually. I guess since I'm going to be up for a while I might as well go over some stuff with you. About the only part out of that whole mess that I believe is that the Agents are watching Smith, which means I have to be even more careful."  
  
"All right. We'll go over it now, in case you need anything… and then I'll bring you out, okay?"  
  
Solace sighed. It had been a long night, and it was going to be an even longer day. Damn Kerr and his petty jealousies… why couldn't he just have left her alone? Why couldn't he have left her and Lily alone? She sighed. It was probably time to get down to business.   
  
"All right." 


	38. Day Fifty Three

Smith found her the next afternoon, going through the papers she had had Tank create for her. It had been a long, tedious process, resulting in her getting perhaps six hours of sleep in the last two days. Her living room had become one giant mess of paper, with a brand new (so new, in fact, that it had never seen the inside of a store) file cabinet upended on its side, the keys still dangling from one open drawer.   
  
"What happened?" It had taken weeks of association for her to become accustomed to his moods, but she thought she detected a note of concern in his voice. How remarkable.   
  
"My ex-husband stopped by last night, after I got home." She sighed heavily and set down her discharge papers from a supposedly (now defunct) psychiatric institute. "Actually he was here waiting for me."  
  
He was silent for a bit, probably not knowing what to say. "What happened?"  
  
Solace was rapidly discovering that she didn't have to feign being upset and nearly hysterical. "He accused me of being in collusion with the government to get him into trouble," she murmured in a near-whisper, hands freezing on the documents. "He wanted me to stop associating with you… dating you was the exact phrase he used." She wasn't entirely sure how Smith was going to react to that one.   
  
The former Agent stood in the entryway, watching her. His face, although no longer shrouded by the sunglasses he had habitually worn, was still closed to her scrutiny. "What else did he say?"  
  
She took a deep, shuddering breath. "He said that I was under scrutiny too, since we were seen so much together. He said that I would get in trouble for it." Her voice cracked. Dammit. "He… threatened to cause trouble for me.'  
  
"Can he?"  
  
Yes. Oh god, yes. She took a deep breath. "I think so. I don't… " she gestured at the papers that were spread out all around her. "I dug out everything I could find… might as well try and put this in some order. I don't know if he can do anything…"  
  
Smith knelt down by her. Now that he was so close she could see there was something strange… something different about him. Her mind, however, refused to focus in on him close enough to be able to tell what it was. "Solace… have you broken any laws? Have you committed any serious crime?"  
  
Terrorist acts. Shootings. Explosions, breaking and entering, data theft. "No." It was barely a whisper. This identity, this self, the one that had been almost entirely erased when she was fourteen, had never committed any crimes.   
  
"Have you been found unable to care for yourself, or mentally incompetent in any way?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Has there been any point where you were examined and diagnosed as a danger to yourself or others?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Then there is most likely nothing he can do to you, beyond financial harassment… and if that should happen, I will take care of it." She looked up at him, blinking, startled more than she could admit. "If he should try to contact you again, call the police. Do not speak with him."  
  
Solace ran her fingers through her hair, worried. "I don't know… I don't want to hurt him or get him into any trouble, I just … want him to leave me alone."  
  
"But he will not, as long as you remain out of his control and associating with people or in places of which he does not approve. Solace, he is a …"  
  
"Control freak." She sighed. "I know. I'm just surprised he's turned up again, after so long."   
  
Smith didn't say anything to that, instead clearing himself a place to sit down and glancing around at all the documents that surrounded them. "You decided to search through your paperwork…"  
  
"Looking to see if there was any way he could hurt me through my past…" she reached out, brushing her fingertips over the mess of psychiatric reports, admittance papers, therapy bills. "Mostly because of this whole mess."  
  
"Your autism."  
  
"Yes…" it was almost a whisper. "It's not exactly a condition that goes away. But it can be lived with, I guess." Hopefully he would never check up on that. She and Tank between them had managed to cobble together a diagnosis that looked like a mild form of autism, some sort of alienation disorder that would account for a long stay in a hospital and then a subsequent release and a sort of life that could be faked… but they didn't know if the deception would hold up against Agent scrutiny. They didn't want to chance finding out, either.   
  
"Is that why you chose a career as a journalist?"  
  
"Freelance writer. But… yes. It's the kind of career I can do from my house if I have to. If I have a bad day…" she took a deep breath. Let it out again. "Haven't had one in a while, which is good. But… I don't want Kerr to try and get it held against me, either."  
  
"There is, legally, no course of action he can take that will debilitate you. The records are all perfectly clear: you are able to function, to fend for yourself and account for your actions, you are able to hold down a job, and you are not a danger to yourself or to others. If he attempts to have you involuntarily committed, you can have friends or co-workers testify to that… I will personally organize it." Coming as it did from him it sounded almost more like a threat than a reassuring promise. Still, it seemed to help, a little.   
  
"Thank you…" she murmured, eyes prickling suddenly with suspicious tears. This whole damn thing was depressing her more than she'd thought. Or maybe it was just the pressure of having her entire made-up life under scrutiny, and knowing that she could be killed in seconds if he found out. And yet it somehow wasn't about that anymore. His fingertips brushed her cheek, making her freeze, making her breath catch in her throat, fear and apprehension and wonder all rolled into one.   
  
"Solace…"  
  
She wanted to respond, to say something. She couldn't.  
  
He stood up and moved into her kitchen. She heard the sound of water running, heard what sounded like ice clinking into a glass. She heard cabinet and refrigerator doors open and close. She heard footsteps on paper again, and then she watched him sit down beside her with two glasses of crystal clear water, two ice cubes floating in each. The image seemed to sharpen itself as she focused on the glass, and the slender yet strong hand that held it.   
  
"Drink…"  
  
He had to wrap her hand around the glass before she realized what he wanted her to do. Mechanically, automatically, she drank. He took the glass from her again and set it down on the table behind them, set his own glass down, and pulled her into an embrace. She was so startled, so confused by everything that had transpired in the last thirty six.. forty eight? Seventy two? She didn't even know anymore. In the last few days. It had all happened in the last few days. Smith stroked her hair, and for a little while she forgot who he was. She forgot that he was an Agent, a computer program, and that she was a human being taught to fight the control of his kind. For a little while all she knew was that she was confused and afraid, and he was warm and comforting and made her feel safe. He stroked her hair, and she knew he would take care of it all.  
  
Reality reasserted itself with an annoying jolt as her phone rang. "Oh my god…" she sat up, nearly slamming the top of her head into his chin. "I forgot to call Mike…"   
  
Smith reached out onto the table and picked up the phone, keeping her pinned in his arms and on the floor. "Hello?"  
  
Silence. Solace realized what looked strange about Smith… his cuffs were unbuttoned, his shirt as well, a little lower down than was really proper. His tie was slightly askew. Some attempt, perhaps, to dress more casually? Or had there been something going on she wasn't aware of?  
  
"She is fine. There was… as I understand it there was an altercation with her ex-husband. Yes. I see." Pause. "No, I would say she is not in any condition to come in to work today. In fact, I would strongly recommend that she be excused from her duties for the rest of the week."  
  
Solace opened her mouth to protest and promptly got a hand clamped over her mouth. She briefly considered biting him. Nah. That probably wouldn't work anyway.   
  
"She seems to have suffered considerable mental and emotional distress. She has also told me that she has been threatened, both physically and otherwise. I think it might be wise if she …" the barest of pauses, probably while he figured out what the right words were. "took a few days off." Pause. "I don't know. I don't believe so… if he did…" Smith looked her up and down. Solace blushed. "There is no sign of it."  
  
"He didn't hit me…" Solace said, guessing what Mike had been asking. Smith gave her the look that said he didn't believe her, and she turned her gaze to the carpet. "Much. It was an even trade."  
  
"There was something of a struggle, she says. I could take her to the hospital…"  
  
"No!"  
  
Long silence. Solace sighed, realizing it probably wasn't up to her. "All right. Yes. Yes, of course. I will contact you later. Thank you. Good-bye."  
  
Solace stared at him in disbelief, hoping it registered as shock on her face. It was so entirely out of character, so unlike the blank-faced killing machines she'd seen in the Agents up till that point, that she didn't think she could move from the spot where she sat, huddled in his arms. Then again, this was also Agent Smith, who for some reason over the last several weeks had been displaying unprecedented degrees of human-like behavior and emotions. And although it had been what she had been half-hoping for… now she had no idea what to do or expect.  
  
"I'm being managed?" she got out, finally.  
  
"You are in no condition to manage yourself."  
  
"I'm fine."  
  
"You're hysterical. And quite probably in shock as well. You need to rest, and you need help to take care of the situation." There was the faintest of pauses. "I can call your friend Julian to come and take care of you, if you prefer."  
  
She took a deep breath. Now was as good a time as any. And the echoes of Julian's words were still in the back of her mind. Men… such fragile creatures. But this wasn't a man, it was a machine. A machine, her mind whispered again, built in the form of a man, so are they really so different? "No…" she murmured.  
  
"Hmm?"  
  
"No…" she turned, pulling out of Smith's embrace but laying her hands over his forearms, raising up to a kneeling position on the floor. "No… Please stay." She dragged her gaze up to meet his eerily blue eyes. Shouldn't programs have less captivating eyes? "I'd… feel more comfortable… if you did…" She had no idea what to say and trailed off, disoriented.  
  
His hands turned up ever so slightly, returning the gesture. His palms were warm on her skin, fingertips gripping her arms lightly. She could feel the heat of his body all the way down the wrists to where his suit jacket began. She was only wearing a light blouse and a relatively short skirt, just below the knees instead of sweeping down to her feet. Suddenly it didn't feel like enough. His eyes were so blue, so close.   
  
"What do you need?" He asked it so softly, and for one split second, horrifying and tantalizing as it was, she thought he was propositioning her. And maybe, in a way, in the only way he knew how, he was. She didn't know enough yet to be sure.  
  
"I need…" What did she need? What did she want from him? What the hell had he meant by that obscure and surreal question? "I need…" best answer it honestly. "… to feel safe." That was for damn sure. She took a deep breath, her fingers digging into the fabric over his arms. "I need to know that no one is going to try to hurt me, or kill me… or do other horrible nasty things to me." She smiled, but it was weak at best, and they both knew it. His fingertips were moving gently over her arms, distracting, puzzling. "I need to know… that everything's going to be all right. That … everything is going to go back to normal again."  
  
Smith nodded slowly. It looked as though he had asked the question for edification purposes only, for more data in his mind, more information on humans and their reactions. The conclusion was both disappointing and reassuring. And then it occurred to her to say something she knew they both might regret. But what the hell.  
  
"I need to know… what there is between us."  
  
He blinked, and dropped his hands immediately as though she'd physically struck at him with the one simple statement. "What are you talking about?" His voice, although she hadn't registered the change (again) was more Agent than human.   
  
"I…" Had she been mistaken? Had it just been solicitous kindness that had spurred on the last fifteen, twenty minutes of action. "Never mind." She looked away, now blushing and embarrassed to have drawn any conclusions at all out of his behavior. "Sorry. I'm…" Oh god. She'd just hit on a computer program. "Sorry."  
  
Slowly, gracefully, Smith rose to his feet. Somewhere in his mind she was sure the statement 'humans are strange' was running around. Damn. Whatever had been between them, hovering unspoken and un-acted upon in that one moment, she had completely shattered the opportunity. With any luck, there would be another one. Somewhere down the line. Sometime. She hoped.   
  
"I will help you clean up…" he said in that business-like tone that told her she was being managed again. "And then we will go for a walk. You should take a day or two and … relax… before you attempt to get your affairs in order."  
  
"Yes, Smith," she murmured, bowing her head like an obedient girl. And somewhere in those few days, for she had no doubt that he would be keeping a close eye on her in that meantime, she would return the favor and perhaps discover what in the name of all that was human had just happened. Solace had the feeling she'd just missed something very important.   
  
Except that she couldn't for the life of her figure out what that was. 


	39. Day Fifty Four

He had to drag the words out of himself. Standing in front of quite possibly the most powerful creation in the Matrix (always excepting the Architect), needing a favor that brought no clear benefit to either of them and presented quite a possible risk… who was he fooling. He didn't know what was involved. He didn't even know why he was doing this. His thoughts had been chasing themselves in very unproductive circles for the last five hours, ever since he'd left Solace asleep in her bed with all the papers tucked up safely and locked in the file cabinet.   
  
The image calmed him. He snarled inwardly at the fact that the image of a young woman curled up in a fetal position under a sky blue comforter that matched her one blue eye… dammit!   
  
The Merovingian stared at him with that faintly amused, very smug expression on his face. His lips were upturned ever so carefully, just enough of a smirk to register. His wife, Persephone… the creature he called his wife, at any rate, none of them were really human or subject to human laws or customs… she lounged in her chair at his side, looking bored. Smith had never understood the point. What was the purpose these AIs served, emulating the humans so carefully and so correctly? Perhaps that was why they had been exiled.  
  
Perhaps that was why he was now rendered obsolete.  
  
He would have shook his head in disgust with himself if he dared show any sort of expression or sign of weakness in front of the Merovingian. That line of thinking was irrelevant, it was not germane to the necessary task at hand, and it was entirely unproductive. Better to drop it at once. Close proximity to humans, prolonged proximity to Solace was making his thought processes sloppy. And yet here he was putting himself at great risk to help her. How remarkable.   
  
"I have a favor for you," Smith said.  
  
"Really," said the Merovingian.   
  
Communication, Smith thought then, was highly overrated. Talking, verbal or written communication, it was all imprecise and should have been done away with long ago, especially between AIs. There was simply no way to properly convey ideas or concepts with the limitations of the forms into which they had been thrust. With the end result, of course, being that Smith was now entirely at a loss for words. Damn the Matrix. Damn the humans, and damn the Architect. And damn that incompetent, paranoid ex-husband of Solace's for necessitating the whole damn thing.   
  
"I have a problem," Smith started, and then swore at himself for starting it out that way. As if the Merovingian hadn't already gathered that from the fact that a disaffected Agent was standing in front of him asking for help. "A human has begun threatening…" my safety? The safety of… what was Solace to him? Dammit. "the woman with whom I was here the other day." That was at least somewhat safe. It was a reference to her, a definition that did not include any frame of reference to him. "I told her that I had begun an investigation into his background and whereabouts." Now why in the name of the Matrix had he said that? "Now I would like that investigation to actually take place."  
  
The Merovingian looked thoughtful. "The woman who accompanied you to the restaurant… the human woman?" It was phrased as a question, and yet Smith had no doubt that the Merovingian knew exactly who she was, and quite possibly had discovered more about her in the last few days than Smith had in the last several weeks.   
  
"Yes… the human woman."  
  
"Now… if I am understanding you correctly…" If I am un-der-stan-dink zhou correkt-ly… The Merovingian's assumed accent grated on Smith's nerves like the squeaking of Styrofoam. "You wish for me to gather information on this human woman's ex-husband and give it to you… so that you may protect her?"  
  
"Yes." The Merovingian had spoken very nearly each word as though each word mattered in and of itself, enunciating each syllable. The delay was aggravating, and solely so that the Merovingian could watch him squirm or roll around the sounds of words in his mouth or whatever damn thing he wanted to do.   
  
"Why?"  
  
Smith snarled inside himself, his hands clenching into fists. "Why …?"  
  
"Why do you want to protect her?"  
  
It was the question that Smith had been asking himself ever since he had made the offer, and he hadn't yet come up with a reasonable answer. "It is in my interest to do so," he said curtly, stalling for time. He was certain the Merovingian would either discover why or come up with his own reason that might actually be correct, and he didn't want to spend any more time in the restaurant than absolutely necessary. The damned Twins were already smirking at him. "You do not need to know why, you only need to know that it is my request."  
  
"If I am to pry into the life of this man, this human, I will be engaging in activity outside my normal spectrum, the habits of my daily life." His voice was almost a purr, a sure sign that something bad was going to be said. "I will draw the attention of les gendarmes, the authorities over us all, and while that will not endanger me or mine in the slightest it will be bad for business. Before I take such a risk for myself, I would like to understand it so that I may mitigate the circumstances. To do this, I must need to know the cause of your inquiry, so that I may understand the effects it will have." He smirked, and a scowl flickered over Smith's face before it smoothed back into the usual impassive lack of expression. "I'm sure you understand."  
  
"I do not understand why you need to pry into my own affairs," Smith said calmly, betraying none of the inner turmoil. He was still himself, still in control enough for that at least.  
  
"Because they are his affairs as well. Through the human woman…"  
  
"Solace," Smith said then, and he couldn't have explained why it irritated him so to hear the Merovingian refer to her as one of the nameless, faceless cattle that burbled their existence in the pods. "Her name is Solace."  
  
"Solace…" The Merovingian lingered on the name too long; even his wife heard the tone in his voice and rolled her eyes in such a way that bespoke consequences for his actions. "I see."  
  
"What do you see?" Persephone asked, her voice deceptively mild. Smith saw, too.  
  
"My dear woman, I see many things." If the Merovingian saw, he gave no outward sign of it. "Solace, then. Through Solace you and this man…"  
  
"Desmond Kerr."  
  
"Are connected. What affects him will undoubtedly affect you, and through you it may affect me. I cannot have that."   
  
"It will not happen."  
  
"I have your assurances of this?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
Smith realized he was committing himself to the security of the Merovingian. He didn't care; actually, in a way, he was relieved. It gave him at least something like a purpose again, and one that was similar to his previous existence as an Agent. Protect the status quo.   
  
The Merovingian straightened again and steepled his fingers, smiling in a way that Smith did not at all like. Then again, Smith liked none of the man's smiles. "Then there is only the matter of payment between us."  
  
Smith nodded slowly, prepared and yet at the same time wondering just what sort of coin the Merovingian would demand for his services. His wife traded in attention, his minions in blood, but the Merovingian himself was rumored to demand strange things, bizarre and seemingly irrelevant things, bits and pieces at random that made no sense to anyone else. If they made sense to him beyond the whims of the moment, no one save perhaps his wife was aware of it.   
  
"What is the payment?"  
  
"Why."  
  
Smith blinked. It wasn't a question, and yet he didn't understand the word as the other, older AI had intended it. "Why?"  
  
"By the time you come to me again, when I have summoned you here to tell you all that I know of this Desmond Kerr, then you will tell me why it is that you want to know. Why you are so protective of this particular human woman, Solace…" He threw in her name before Smith had a chance to correct him again.   
  
"Why do you want to know?" It sounded too easy. It sounded too much like a trap. And then again, Smith knew that he couldn't have answered the question at the moment. Given time, perhaps he could come up with a plausible story that even the Merovingian would accept as truth. He knew the AI would accept nothing less.  
  
The Merovingian gave a very Gallic, very obscure shrug. "Call it my insatiable curiosity," he smirked, "O best beloved."  
  
Smith wrinkled his nose and would have taken offense if he hadn't been warned about the AI's strange sense of humor. "Very well."  
  
"You agree?"  
  
"I do."  
  
"Excellent!" He clapped his hands unexpectedly, a child being allowed to open one present before Christmas. It was disturbing to the normally emotionless AI. The Merovingian bounded to his feet, seeming intent on personally escorting Smith to the door. "I will have something for you very soon, I think."  
  
The interview was concluded. The rest of the conversation consisted of a few exchanged pleasantries, and Smith was at the door almost before he knew what had happened to him, what he had committed to. It ran through his thought processes like water over a stone, smooth and gone before he could register it. He walked down the street, got into his car, drove to Solace's house almost automatically. This, he decided with a sort of pragmatic detachment, must be the equivalent of shock. Perhaps he could make sense of what had happened as he helped Solace to pick up the pieces of her life again.   
  
Perhaps she could help him to pick up the pieces of his own life, which he was only now starting to realize were scattered further than he had ever imagined.  
  
-  
  
-  
  
-  
  
-  
  
The black SUV stayed far away from the Shelby, and yet both driver and passenger within took turns spying on the occupant of the other car. It was easy enough to follow Smith; he had no idea that he was going to be tailed, and he'd been slammed and slammed hard by the Merovingian's obscure ways. He was, as had been predicted, going to the home of his human pet, probably in order to tell her some version of what had just transpired and to seek her advice about what to do.  
  
White lips curled upwards in identical sneers. The former Agent was so very, very whipped.  
  
"The Merovingian believes his answer will be …"  
  
"… desire…"  
  
"… attachment…"  
  
"But we know better."  
  
Two different words for the same thing; it was one of the strengths of the Twins that they were just different enough to provide some versatility in their functions, and just alike enough to function as a seamless pair.   
  
"He is alone, confused, casting about for something to do. He'll come around eventually."  
  
"And we will find other things to do with him."  
  
"Yes, we will."   
  
One Twin glanced at the other, winked. The other Twin winked back, eyes on the road, doing what they did best. Paired programs, sword and shield, search and destroy. They had been together for so long that neither of them retained any memory of what life had been like apart. Thoughts echoed from one mind to the other, memories of the lost look that Smith had had when he had first come to them, specifically, for help. Thoughts that perhaps that was what it was like to lose a Twin, to lose one's sense of the world and suddenly be left with nothing solid to stand on. Thoughts that were uncomfortable, and easily pushed away.   
  
"The Architect will pay in good trade for the rogue Agent delivered for deletion," one Twin thought aloud, replacing sympathy for the former Agent with contempt. It was an easier emotion to stomach, easier to maintain.   
  
"The Merovingian wouldn't like it," one Twin warned.  
  
"The Merovingian doesn't have to know."  
  
Identical handsome, frightening lips. Identical smiles. Identical hands smoothed out over dashboard and steering wheel. Identical sighs of contentment and pleasure. 


	40. Day Fifty Seven

Smith would never have admitted to the feelings of curiosity that whispered through him, but as he drove to the federal building even he could tell that his hands were jittering a little too much on the wheel. He had phoned the office of the magazine Solace worked for earlier in the day, only to be told that she was out on assignment for the morning and would not be available until lunch. He had opted to take her out to lunch (an act that nagged at his mind after what the Merovingian had said) and was due to surprise her at the interview site.   
  
In more ways than one, Smith thought with a wry shake of his head. Looking in the mirror earlier in the day he had hardly recognized the man who stared back at him. Faded gray jeans, a white t-shirt, and a faded black duster... hardly the uniform of an Agent. Which was, after all, the point. If the visit to the Merovingian had done nothing else it had served to remind him that he would have to either cast off his old guise or assume a pose of invulnerability if he wanted to survive as an Exile in the Matrix. And at the moment, with everything that had happened and was still happening, he didn't feel up to the show of bravado and self-assurance that a pose of invulnerability would require. So... a change of appearance would be required. The informal and simple wear would serve.   
  
It occurred to him, briefly, to wonder whether or not Solace would like it. Almost as soon as the thought crossed his mind, however, it was gone again. He didn't need to be worrying what some human woman thought of the clothing he decided to wear, he told himself sternly. Her opinions were irrelevant anyway.   
  
He smoothed his hands over the steering wheel again. There was no reason to be nervous, no reason to be concerned. He was merely doing what he had done nearly every day for several weeks now... and most of all now, with his status as an Exile, these regular meetings were important in keeping him occupied, in a routine... sane.   
  
He pulled up to the building, parked, walked to the entrance and stared up at it for several seconds before he realized that he was standing in what Solace affectionately referred to as Secret Agent Stance. That would be another thing he would have to get used to... he was an Exile now, a civilian as humans reckoned the term, and therefore should refrain from acting like an Agent.   
  
He swooped into the lobby, wondering if it was a sign of his increasing dementia that he suddenly understood why Solace's friend Julian enjoyed wearing dusters... they did look imposing and swoop nicely around the ankles when moving at a slightly faster-than-walking pace.   
  
... Julian. That was another person he would have to speak to, if for no other reason than Solace's friends had been extremely reticent to speak with him or allow her to see him since the incident at their party. Not that he could blame them. But that was a problem for another day.  
  
He made his way up the elevator, down the hall, to the office and in. The secretary looked up at him with arched eyebrows.   
  
"Can I help you?"  
  
"I believe a reporter is interviewing the Senator... I am here to take her to lunch after the interview is concluded."  
  
Her eyes glazed over slightly, and Smith cursed himself for failing to remember to alter his speech patterns appropriately.   
  
"Should I just wait here?"  
  
She nodded slowly. "Yes... they should be done in a few minutes."   
  
Smith nodded back politely and took a seat in one of the chairs, correcting his position after a second to a more relaxed and casual pose. True to her word, it was only five minutes before the door behind the secretary opened and Solace walked out, smiling and shaking hands with the Senator.   
  
"I'm sure it will..." Solace glanced over, saw Smith, turned back to the Senator, "... be fine..." Blinked and looked back at Smith. "Er. Thank you for your time, Senator..." The door closed. She walked over to Smith, standing a couple of paces back, and looked him up and down.  
  
"What?"  
  
"If I touch you will you explode in a puff of dust or something?" she asked, but her tone was happy and amused. "I think that's the first time I've seen you out of uniform at your own behest."  
  
Smith extended his arm politely, and they walked out to the elevators. "It seemed inappropriate to continue in the same fashion of an agent. This was the best I could come up with."   
  
Solace chuckled, squeezing his arm companionably and resting her head on his shoulder for the briefest of seconds, almost an embrace. "Don't worry, we'll find you some colors. We may even get wild later and do your hair at a salon."   
  
He smiled. It looked good on him.  
  
They got into the car. Solace chuckled again, smoothing her hands over the dash. "I am never going to get over you having this car. It's so... elegant."  
  
Smith cocked an eyebrow at her as they pulled out of the parking lot. "Is elegant somehow inappropriate for me?"  
  
"No... no, that's not it at all..." she laughed, window down, hair whipping around her face. "It's just, I never pictured myself running around with someone who had such an impeccable sense of style."  
  
"Ah."  
  
It was a short drive to their destination. Solace was so busy enjoying the wind on her face and the fresh air that she didn't realize they hadn't gone to a restaurant until they were pulling into the parking lot again. She blinked. "The park?"  
  
"I thought a picnic lunch would be nice."  
  
The expression of quiet joy that slowly spread across her face somehow made his knees tremble, made the day seem brighter, sent waves of feeling through him that he didn't understand and didn't know how to cope with. Angrily he pushed them back, clenching his hands briefly. Something of the inner struggle must have shown on his face, in the set of his jaw, because the brightness went out of her eyes and instead they became thoughtful, pensive.  
  
"It would... be very nice." She smiled, but it held very little of the joy a few seconds earlier. There was, however, a tenderness and compassion that hadn't been there before. Again he wondered at his new ability to pick out her emotions from the simple look in her eyes.  
  
He moved over to the trunk of the car, disconnecting from her, from that strange sensation. The picnic basket was a classic concept, but she seemed to enjoy classic. And stylish. He pulled out the blanket, appropriately tattered despite being gathered from the threads of the Matrix a few hours earlier, the picnic basket, and closed the trunk.   
  
"Did you have a spot in mind?"  
  
"As a matter of fact I do..." he said, and pulled out a length of cloth from the basket.   
  
Sol's eyes widened.  
  
".... I won't hurt you," he said, suddenly confused. What was...  
  
"I believe you."  
  
Something had just happened, and he was at a loss to explain what it was. Pushing all that aside he set the basket down, stepped forward, and blindfolded her. He slipped the strap of the picnic basket over his shoulder and took her hand, gently leading her down one of the cement paths.   
  
"It's just this way..."  
  
It was a strange experience, leading her as she followed him with (literally) blind trust, smiling and with her face turned up towards the sun. It seemed from her expressions as though she could feel the change between sunlight and shade, when they moved from clearings to trees and back again. He knew it should have given him a sense of power, a sense of superiority, and yet all he found himself considering was whether or not the path was smooth enough that she wouldn't stumble or fall. It didn't seem right to him.  
  
"Wait here..." He knew the blanket and basket would make noises as he set out the whole arrangement, but it couldn't be helped. The picnic was set out easily enough, and he moved behind her and untied the blindfold.  
  
Solace stared. Then she actually clapped her hands and squealed with delight. Smith stared. He didn't think he'd ever actually seen a human do that before.  
  
"Oh... you got sushi! Nigiri and rolls and..." she dropped to her knees, staring at the array of treats as though she wasn't sure which to try first. Smith, amused and perplexed by both their reactions, knelt by her.   
  
"I wasn't sure which you preferred..."  
  
She looked up at him, eyes shining. Bad poetry flickered through his mind and was gone. "Well, I haven't met a sushi I didn't like..."   
  
Smith produced chopsticks from the basket and they settled down to eat. For a little while the only sounds were thoughtful chewing and Solace's little noises of ecstasy. He hadn't realized that sushi was intended to be such an enjoyable experience... or perhaps that was just her. She reminded him, he thought suddenly, of a kitten that was having its belly rubbed, all closed-eyes and happy noises.  
  
Except he had never been in close proximity to a kitten, no matter what was happening to it.  
  
He scowled, gnawing on a piece of eel. This was most definitely getting out of hand. And yet, as often as he repeated the thought to himself, it wasn't serving either to convince him that reconfiguration was needed or reconsideration was warranted. He was just perpetuating a pattern of bad behavior that would only lead to ruin in the end... why?  
  
And thinking of which... "Solace..."  
  
"Mmm?"  
  
He took a deep breath; he didn't know why. "You defend your ex-husband against what should be his due consequences... why?"  
  
She stopped, mouth open, cucumber roll halfway to it and dripping soy sauce from between chopsticks. It would have been comical if her eyes hadn't just gone so flat, so dead. "I don't see that that's any of your business."  
  
Emotions flared in him again, but these were darker, angrier. He could live with that. If nothing else, he was used to it. "I'm afraid it is my business. He is, no matter what he was to you once, a criminal. I am required to bring him to the proper authorities, or at the very least to direct their attention to likely avenues of..."  
  
"You're required, now? I thought you weren't an Agent anymore."  
  
Dissonance, alarm... and then he remembered that the word had connotations outside the Matrix, in her world. "I still retain duties as a citizen of this society. One of them being to alert the proper authorities of the whereabouts of criminals and wanted felons..."  
  
She seemed to realize that the cucumber roll was dripping onto her leg, and popped it into her mouth even as she wiped off the small puddle of soy sauce with a napkin. It was gone quickly, with out any of the savoring or ceremony of the previous several sushi rolls. "So you can just turn people in regardless of what they've done or how they've changed?"  
  
Smith arched an eyebrow. "From what I observed, from your own behavior, your husband has not changed in the slightest."  
  
"Dammit, Smith, he's my ex-husband. And that's still none of your business."  
  
He didn't know why he'd suddenly gone so cold, so emotionless. "If you still have feelings for him..."  
  
"My feelings are also none of your business." Her icy tone would have done an Agent proud, if Agents could be proud.  
  
"It is a well documented fact that abused women often feel sympathy towards their abusers, and return...."  
  
"Oh spare me the statistics and surveys and well documented psycho-babble Freudian bullshit! You tried that line before. It wasn't relevant then, and it's not any more relevant now that you think you've finally got some proof."   
  
"Then explain to me your reasoning. Because I can see no other justification for your continued harboring..."  
  
"Harboring!"  
  
"Of a wanted fugitive and a known terrorist."  
  
She stared at him ... like he was something particularly nasty and putrid she wanted to shake from her shoe. As though he the attacker and not her former husband. It was a familiar stare. It was a stare he got from many Resistance members. But he had never expected to be on the receiving end of something like that from her.  
  
"Did you set this up, or is this just some sort of horrific accident? Is that what this whole charade is, a means to get me to confess something in my background, something that will help you nail Kerr's feet to the floor of a jail cell? I understand what he's done, probably better than you, and I also understand that my defense of him, no matter how sick and reprehensible it may seem to you, is based on the fact that I've known him better than you ever will and I have more of an idea of what he's capable of that you can even comprehend. You, on the other hand, have jumped to conclusions and back again so fast that even you can't see clearly, and if anyone's vision is clouded here it's yours, Agent Smith." She spat out the last word as though it was a curse. Probably, to her, it was.  
  
"Kerr's incarceration will be beneficial to you, as well. You seemed as worried as anyone might be when I looked into his activities and found..."  
  
"What? Suspicious activity? Tell me, what exactly does Big Brother define as suspicious activity?"  
  
"You may not approve now, but if you allow us to proceed you will find that your life may become easier when ..." That tack wasn't working. "I am doing this for your own protection, Solace."  
  
"I never asked you to protect me from my husband...!"  
  
"Your ex-husband."  
  
She froze, eyes wide and shocked. Something brittle rose to the fore in her expression and in her posture, something fragile that seemed to have just snapped that little bit further. Smith, oddly enough, was starting to realize how she must feel. He felt ... perhaps not the same way, or for the same reasons... but as though there were razor-sharp edges, broken glass all along his skin. The argument, which had been so heated a moment ago, suddenly seemed to make no sense. He felt drained, exhausted, broken.   
  
"I'm sorry..." her voice drifted to him. He felt disconnected; he might have been in the corridor of back doors again, and not in the Matrix at all. "Smith..." her hands were laid over his. "I am sorry. I shouldn't have yelled... you are right, it's just... hard to believe in my own fallibility, I guess. I think... I was clinging to some hope that he wasn't as bad as he seemed..."  
  
By those last few words he had managed to drag himself back to the present again. Relief swamped him, a little anger, a little confusion. And the softer emotions, the quieter thoughts too. He looked down, not entirely sure what to say or do.  
  
Solace moved the sushi trays aside and settled down next to him, pulling him into her arms. He allowed it, although he was quite sure it was partially out of shock. "It is a beautiful picnic... thank you for taking me here..."  
  
"I thought you might like a change of venue..." his words sounded strange even to him, watery, warbled.   
  
"Smith?"  
  
He took a deep breath and, despite not wanting to know the answer, performed an internal diagnostic examination that registered in his mind more under the phrase of 'soul searching.' What he found shook him so deeply that he set it aside immediately, to be dealt with later, alone and unwitnessed. For the moment he settled on a temporary excuse that he knew she, as a human woman, would accept. Perhaps it would even go a little ways towards securing her good will.   
  
"I am sorry... I think..." he swallowed. "I was jealous. You ..." Damn. How would she expect to hear it. "Seemed attached to him still. I ..." He didn't know how to continue and didn't want to.   
  
She was silent for a long time. He was grateful for their positions, which made it impossible for him to see the expression on her face. He didn't, for once, want to know what she was thinking.  
  
"It's all right."  
  
More silence.  
  
"I don't, you know."  
  
"Hmmm?"  
  
"Still have feelings for him. Not in the sense you mean, anyway."  
  
He didn't understand. It had just been an excuse. Hadn't it?  
  
"Oh." Pause. "That's good."  
  
After a little while she pulled back, sitting on her heels. He wasn't yet ready to relinquish the intimacy. Confusion warred within him, indecision as to whether to indulge his strange new instincts or follow the imperatives of what he was by the nature of his construction. And yet, weren't the two one and the same? They should have been. Somehow, they weren't. The disharmony threatened to rip him apart almost without cessation, these days. He gave in to the new impulses, and pulled her into his arms, hoping somehow that the knowledge of what to do would come out of the whole mess.  
  
It didn't.  
  
But then, after the first hour, after listening to her quietly drift off into a light sleep and feeling the soft rhythm of her breath against the thin material over his skin, feeling the rhythm of her heart under his fingertips at her neck and the soft press of her grass-stained feet on his leg... somehow, after the first hour, it didn't seem to matter. 


	41. Day Fifty Eight

Solace was actually skipping as she went down the hallway and into the elevator, bouncing lightly from heel to toe, impatient for it to descend to the ground floor. The last two days, despite (or perhaps because of?) Kerr's presence, had been utterly perfect. She'd gotten the interview, gotten the lead on the story that had earned her many plaudits and backslaps in the news room, had the long talk with Smith that had resulted in things that gave her a funny feeling in the stomach and a cold chill to think about. And she had accomplished all of this while still managing to get some decent sleep and even some conversation in on the Neb.   
  
The elevator doors dinged, cheerily, or so she thought. Solace bounded out between them, skipping down the hall...   
  
... and skidding to a halt as she saw Kerr arguing loudly with the concierege. Who was, to his credit, trying to bar the man entrance. But Solace knew that it wouldn't to any good to shout at Kerr if Kerr decided he wanted into the building. He had all the powers of a man outside the Matrix, or at least within it without being a part of it.   
  
He hadn't seen her yet. There was, just maybe, time enough to get to the garage and get the hell out of there before he noticed. Except... oh damn. Except she had to warn...   
  
"There you are..." she couldn't tell if he was angry at her, pleased to see her, just exasperated in general, or what was going through his mind at that point. She didn't want to stick around and find out, though.  
  
"And I was just leaving, too," she said, putting as much iciness into her tone as she could. Those skills, she was starting to realize, were becoming more and more easily picked up as she hung about with Smith. Maybe quiet scorn and monotone snarkiness was catching.  
  
"Sol, I really don't think you're taking me seriously."  
  
He was the absolute limit. "I'm taking you very seriously, Kerr, all right? Very seriously. But I don't think you're actually listening to me when I tell you I just want to be left alone! Can you even comprehend that? Leave! Me! Alone!" From even voice to screaming match in two point five seconds. That was a record even for her. It was the urgency that was doing it, the sense that she needed to get him out of there before something really bad happened.   
  
"Sol, baby, I can't do that, okay? I care about you. I care about your welfare, and what you're doing right now is..."   
  
She pulled back, but somewhere in the last two sentences worth of conversation he had gotten a good grip on her arm, and when she reached out to fend him off he grabbed the other hand.   
  
"Sol, listen to me."  
  
"I've listened to you enough for one lifetime, Kerr."  
  
"You've got to trust me, okay, just..."  
  
"I've also trusted you enough for one lifetime, Kerr, okay? Your passion is compelling, it's also extraordinarily futile. If you wanted to look out for my welfare and well-being you should have actually done a half-decent job when we were still married. You should have actually cared about me then. It's a little late now."  
  
He drew back, startled and stung. Unfortunately he didn't relinquish his grip on her arm.  
  
"Let me go."  
  
"No, Sol, I can't..."  
  
"Let me go!"  
  
"Sol..."  
  
"I believe the woman told you to release her."   
  
Solace closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. This was exactly what she hadn't wanted... Smith, and herself, and Kerr in a public place together, in a confrontational situation where it was entirely possible that everything she was and everything that was going on would be thrust into the light. Even if that didn't happen (and she was actually somewhat surprised that it hadn't yet, although Smith hadn't seen her do too many out of the ordinary things), Kerr had almost certainly been outed. All this talk about terrorist organizations... it could only mean one thing.  
  
And now Kerr and Smith were in the same hallway at the same time, and Kerr had been caught manhandling her. This was a recipe for disaster of Hindenburgian proportions. She could even hear the little voice in her head saying 'oh, the humanity!'  
  
"This isn't any of your business..." she saw Kerr mouthing the word 'robot,' and devoutly hoped Smith couldn't see it around her head. Solace did wonder, though, why he hadn't said it aloud.  
  
"It is very much my business. Solace is a friend of mine, and you have caused her a great deal of pain and distress in the past. I would very much like to see that it doesn't happen again."   
  
Oh, that was a threat. Solace sighed, inwardly wincing as the situation deteriorated with depressing rapidity. Kerr's expression darkened.   
  
"It strikes me, Agent... Smith, isn't it?"  
  
Solace winced again. Fortunately Smith made no audible response, nothing to indicate that he was surprised that Kerr knew who he was. He probably just assumed she had blurted it out in a moment of heat or anger. At least, she hoped he did.  
  
"It is."  
  
"It strikes me, Smith, that you're the one more likely to cause her harm, pain, or distress. You're the one who runs her kind down and puts them away. You're the one who kills our kind."  
  
Our kind. Shit. Please, please God. Please, if there was any justice in the Matrix, let Smith not make that connection. She squinched her eyes shut and went down to her knees, trying to curl up and praying as hard as she ever had to all the gods she could muster belief in that everything hadn't just been blown wide open.  
  
The next thing she saw, the next thing she was conscious of actually experiencing was a blur by her side, a rush of wind past her cheek, and the unmistakeable sound of a man's fist impacting on the hard jawbone of someone's face. She opened her eyes, sitting back sharply and ending up on her butt in the hallway. Smith had punched Kerr back a good several feet, and Kerr was also sprawled on his butt in the hallway, rubbing his jaw and looking startled. Hell, she was startled. She hadn't expected Smith to haul off and pop him one like that. Not in the public haunt of men, as it were.  
  
"Smith..." she got to her knees, stretched out a hand to do something, stop them somehow, but that was as far as she got.  
  
"You bastard..." Kerr got to his feet, rubbing his jaw, and then he started to move almost faster than the human eye could follow... at least, the unassisted human eye. She had no idea why he was... why both of them were cracking the secrecy that both Agent and Resistance had previously tried to respect. Now...   
  
"Smith, don't..." He wasn't even listening to her. Kerr's first punch was blocked easily, and Smith kicked him across the room (much to the startlement of the concierge). He must have still been dazed. "Smith!"  
  
Kerr picked himself up off the wall, wincing, clearly in pain, and clearly more enraged than a bull in the toreador ring. About as dumb, too, Solace thought wryly. He gave as good as he got for a little while, and Smith hammered him back and forth across the lobby. Solace racked her brains, thinking as fast as she could for some way to stop this, some way that wouldn't reveal who or what she was ... they were going to kill each other. Well, Kerr was going to get killed, since Smith had the immortality of the AI... "Smith!"  
  
That time she reached him. The volume of her voice, or the tone, or just that particular moment he might have had a chance to stop and breathe and listen, she didn't know. He paused just long enough to be humanly visible, and she ran up behind him and pulled him back like any ordinary woman would have. "Don't. Don't do it. He's not worth it." She was speaking a mile a minute and she didn't care. "Smith, let security deal with it."  
  
Because security was coming, oh yes. With the pitter patter of little feet in thick hard-soled (possibly steel-toed) boots, security was here. Solace tactfully interposed herself between Smith and the belligerent ex-husband, who still looked as though he wanted to knock the Agent across the hall and back, several times.   
  
Smith angrily straightened his suit. It was, Solace reflected with the clarity of thought after panic, a damn good thing he'd worn that today. He looked about as federal as he ever had, even if it was I've-just-been-prevented-from-apprehending-that-bastard federal. The sort of expression one might expect to find on an FBI agent who's just realized he's come up against the walls of jurisdiction. The sort of stance that said 'the only thing keeping me from giving you the ass-beating you so richly deserve is my contractually-obligated mysterious stoicism.' The death glare of the Secret Service.   
  
"Ma'am...?" They approached her, probably at the concierge's direction since she'd been the only non-combatant involved in the fight. "What happened here?"  
  
"Her..." Smith started to say, and she kicked him lightly in the ankle.  
  
"My ex-husband showed up," she said, exasperatedly gesturing at Kerr. "He tried to drag me off somewhere with him... Smith came down and ... well. There was an..." how did she put this delicately. "Altercation."  
  
The security guard who seemed to be in charge (and the only one who wasn't hanging onto Kerr) looked over at Smith. The former Agent gave him the blank stare of a government enforcer. The guard shrugged. "What do you want us to do, ma'am?"  
  
"Throw him out, for one thing." Solace took probably an excessive amount of pleasure in glaring at Kerr as he gaped at her in astonishment. "And if he ever shows his stupid face back here again... I don't know, shoot him or something. Have him arrested for trespassing. Or stalking."  
  
"You can't..." Kerr started to say, but they were already hauling him off.  
  
"I don't think the lady's much interested, sir."  
  
Solace smirked, muttering under her breath. "Watch me. Kerr, you stupid, stupid man. You have no idea what you've just done."  
  
Smith's hands came down on her shoulders, lightly, but she still jumped and squeaked. "It's all right," he said quickly. "It is only me."  
  
"Sorry..." she took a deep breath. "I... sorry about that. I have no idea what the hell's going through Kerr's mind when he pulls stunts like that. Hopefully this time he'll at least stay out of my apartment building."  
  
Smith slipped a protective arm around her shoulders as they moved back to the garage where they'd been heading before all hell had broken loose. "I still do not understand why you don't want me to..."  
  
"Smith..." her tone was teasing, but also warning. "Not today, okay? Not after that."   
  
He hugged her lightly, half protecting her, half steering her since she seemed to be about to walk into things at any given moment. The fight had shaken her up more than she wanted to admit, or even could admit to him. "As you wish."  
  
She burst into quietly suppressed giggles. The former Agent cocked an eyebrow at her, which only made her laugh harder. "Some day you are going to tell me what it is about that phrase that makes you laugh like that."  
  
That pushed her into full-on laughter. The thought of Smith as the Dread Pirate Roberts... ah, too much. "Tomorrow," she promised. "I'll fill you in tomorrow." 


	42. Day Fifty Nine

A/N: Sorry! Many apologies for taking so long with this most recent chapter! I have a good excuse, though. And it can be summed up in three words.  
  
Matrix. Revolutions. Previews.  
  
I saw the first one a couple days after putting up the most recent chapter of this epic-length story. My first thought was, to be honest... "Damn. I should have written this story in the four years it took them to come out with the sequels." And then I started thinking about how I could rewrite this to take place between Matrix and Reloaded/Revolutions, in the six months (apparently) that passed.   
  
I'm still working on it. I've no idea how Smith gets from the mellow sort of person he seems to be becoming (although as you'll see in this chapter he has some issues with denial) to the psychotic little self-replicating power-mad fiend in the previews for Revolutions. If anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them. Meanwhile, since it comes out in a month, I've decided to just keep putting up chapters and hope a solution presents itself. There may well be another hiatus after I see Revolutions, but that one at least will be marked with "RECONFIGURATION! RECONFIGURATION!" all over the story summary so that you, my beloved readers, will know what is going on.  
  
And now, on with the drama!  
  
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He still didn't know what was happening to him, and the situation was becoming more and more complex with each passing day. He was understanding meanings of human phrases that he had never given much consideration before, such as the use of the image of a drowning man in so many phrases. That was what he felt like... as though he was drowning, as though there was nothing for him to cling to that would stop him from a slow and inexorable death.   
  
And yet there was no visible threat, nothing he could strike out against.   
  
The former Agent Smith stared out at the rain that poured down in sheets against his patio doors. Solace had fallen asleep on the couch, lulled by the sound of the rain and the comfort of human (or so she thought) warmth. It was probably for the best. She looked as though she hadn't slept in weeks, although her actual energy level seemed not to have diminished at all. They had watched the film she had been referring to, some ridiculously silly fantasy piece called The Princess Bride, and it did at least explain why she had laughed the other day. Humans were so given to references and memory triggers.   
  
The thought triggered a memory in him, as well. The memory of the incident yesterday that had led to his comment and her laughter. It wasn't right, he knew that. It couldn't be right. All the little clues that he had been missing (ignoring) over the last several weeks, all the little hints and slips that she had tried to mask... successfully, he had to admit, for the most part. It was all adding up, had all added up in the collection of algorithms and processes that passed for his mind, and yet it all pointed to a conclusion that was in direct opposition to what he knew of her to be true and very full of proof.  
  
Smith glanced over at the sleeping woman with a scowl that would have seared her where she lay, if looks could kill. She was such an enigma, an illogical impossibility, and he hated illogic.   
  
It wasn't right, any of it. The Resistance, down to the last man, woman, or child, dressed in black or white, or occasionally gunmetal or red. They dressed in leather, in vinyl and plastic, or when they had to in denim and lycra. They talked and walked and acted and looked the part of any other member of that strange counterculture; presumably they hid among the (ironically ever-growing in number) outcasts of society because the outcasts already behaved strangely. If they were ever caught, it wouldn't matter. Their behavior was strange enough for humans, and had put them beyond the pale.   
  
Solace dressed casually, comfortably, in all colors and shapes. She wore her hair loosely or in braids, strung together with all manner of beads or feathers or whatever else she happened to pick up along the way. He had seen her pick up pieces of string off of the street, bits of balloon ties or feathers from passing crows, and weave them into her hair. Her behavior reflected the whimsy of an entirely different, past counter culture. And it reflected a sense of peace or at least calm that no one else in the Resistance had been seen to possess.   
  
The Resistance hated the Agents, and feared them. They were the natural enemy of the Agents, the very reason the Agents had come into being in the first place. The only thing a member of the Resistance would do when confronted with the enforcer AI programs was run. In rare occasions, if cornered, the Resistance member might actually put up some sort of a fight. Never, in all of Smith's recollections (and he could recall everything that had happened to every Agent ever created, thanks to the Mainframe), never had a member of the Resistance attempted to befriend an Agent. In any iteration of the Matrix. It was unthinkable, to either side. It was... his own mind rebelled against the thought. Why would a Resistance woman knowingly and of her own free will walk into a situation that could very well mean her death? And why would she constantly put herself into that situation?  
  
Memories returned, fast, constant, a series of blows rained down upon him, only this actually hurt. Closer to an actual, tangible, physical pain than anything he had ever experienced. The first memories, how she had approached him with casual diffidence when he was at work with Agents Brown and Jones. The first interview, the philosophy that had followed... and the philosophy made sense now that he thought about it in this context, everything seemed to flow together with sickening ease. Her responses to his hesitant lies, her questions, her voice, her face, her touches, her actions. Memory after memory after memory crashed down upon him in waves of confusion and an almost tangible ache.   
  
Why? If she was Resistance, why in the name of all that was machine had she done such a thing? Why did she continue to do it, day after day? Why was she even now asleep on his couch that she must know was a construction, a fabrication, a pretense like everything else about this damn world? She must know. She must... everything made sense if she knew. It made absolutely no sense... but then, if she didn't...  
  
It just didn't make sense. Period.   
  
She stirred on the couch, dragging his attention back to her physical form. Was she, like all the rest, plugged into a series of machines on a ship somewhere? Was her physical body not supplying power to the Matrix itself like all the rest, but apart from it, out of it, free to do what she wanted.   
  
Smith was startled to find that he actually hoped so. Further frightened to discover that he was actually wondering what life was like on the outside, for her, if she really was unplugged as he was starting to realize was only logical. He was actually wondering what life must be like for the members of the Resistance when they weren't fomenting sedition and insurrection. Did they have homes, heat and light and food and water out there? They must... the Agents had seen and found recurring humans over a period of years. They must have some means of survival... then what was the rest of their life on the outside like? Was it a never-ending struggle for survival, or did they have recreation, leisure time, enough of a surplus of resources that occasionally they could take some time for themselves to contemplate the meaning of... whatever?  
  
He wanted to ask her. And at the same time he wanted to crush her skull for lying to him. He could do either so easily while she slept.   
  
She had to be a member of the Resistance, or at least know of them. Had to be. Kerr was certainly of the Resistance, Smith had found out that much when he had applied to the Merovingian for a full-on dossier about the irritating man. And Solace hadn't seemed at all surprised at the faster-than-human combat that had ensued when Kerr had appeared in the lobby of her building. It just was too much to be coincidence. All the sideways and backhanded references, the lack of surprise, the complete and total acceptance of Smith's own strange ways. She had to know. She had to at least know, if not be a part of the unplugged bastard children of the Matrix.   
  
And... what was he going to do now? His hands were clenched into fists as he looked at her; by all rights he should turn her into the rest of the Agents, or deal with her himself. Turning her in for interrogation... especially if she was a ship's captain, with the Zion codes... it could result in his reinstatement. He allowed himself to hope for a moment, and then was overwhelmed with self-loathing. The very emotion was so wrong on so many levels, chief among them because it was an emotion, and because it was a betrayal of all her trust.   
  
And yet hadn't she betrayed him? Her secret. Her lies. She had lied from every moment, with every breath and gesture...  
  
Had she?  
  
He had never asked. He had never even though to ask, he had assumed that what she was... was she? He had looked in the Matrix, there were records. She was really employed where she said she was. Leading a double life, perhaps? Was that what she was doing, so that both lives... neither of them were entirely a lie and she hadn't lied at all but simply by omission led him to believe...  
  
What?  
  
What did he believe?   
  
His thoughts were chasing themselves around in circles. He had never felt so cut off as he did now, cut off from everything that was familiar and safe. He was outcast from the Agents, from the Matrix, purposeless and wandering. And now the one person who he had thought was still an ally was gone... or was she?   
  
If she was Resistance, why was she doing this? Why had she stayed? What was she doing, and why? So many questions he wanted to ask her, and yet he dared ask nothing.   
  
She couldn't be Resistance, he decided. Resistance did not act this way. Resistance humans did not curl themselves up like a sleeping child on the make-believe sofas of the Agents and sleep as though they were safe from everything dangerous in the world. They did not trust the Agents, they did not hold them or talk to them or weep in their arms. They did not, he remembered with the faintest glimmerings of a smile, dart across lanes of traffic in their pajamas in the rain and nearly get killed by a hydroplaning vehicle in order to apologize to an Agent. No matter that she had to have seen Kerr and himself moving faster than the human eye could follow, no matter that all of her actions and words told him that she had to know at least something of what he was, she couldn't be one of the unplugged.  
  
And because there were no humans who knew of the Matrix who weren't unplugged (the AIs had seen to that) she couldn't know. His own (shameful) secret was safe; reality restored itself. The algorithms and processes in Smith's mind reshaped, reworked themselves until the world made sense once again. It was all just some strange coincidence. She was, after all, more accepting of things outside the norm. More things on heaven and earth, as a human writer had said, erroneously but humans did love to repeat it so. Smith closed his eyes, and the world seemed to shift around him until it was safe and ordinary once again.  
  
When Solace finally opened her eyes again the former Agent was standing and watching the rain again, watching as it slackened to a light pitter-pat on the patio floor. His hands were loose and open at his sides, his posture relaxed. No sunglasses, not even the Agent suit, today he wore loose and flowing clothing that had the look of old sweats two sizes too large for him, sweatshirt tied loosely around his waist, t-shirt hanging about his gaunt frame like a tent. A reassuring sort of a fashion, he had discovered. And more suited to her own casual attire than the uniform he no longer really had a right to wear. He glanced around as she sat up, brushing her hair out of her still slightly dazed eyes, and briefly thought about smiling.  
  
Everything was as it should be.  
  
If not necessarily as it was. 


	43. Oracle

A/N: Random thought, does anyone else wonder, if the Merovingian puts THAT program into his 'special' cake, what do you think the Oracle put into the cookie she gave Neo? Maybe that program-thingie the Architect was talking about… ooh. There's a thought.  
  
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"Why don't you go see the Oracle?"  
  
Solace was in full Resistance garb today, not that it made much difference anyway. Her secret was out, and she knew it. She stood before the door of the Oracle's apartment, wondering if she dared to knock. Wondering if, since it was the Oracle after all, it really made any difference whether or not she knocked. The old woman probably knew she was out there anyway.   
  
Solace shuddered. Tank had said it so casually, a toss-off comment over single-cell about her 'little problem' that had made her snort the goopy stuff. Which had, of course, provoked a number of light-hearted comments about the resemblance of single-cell's texture, taste, and appearance to snot. The subject had quickly been passed over and no one was really the wiser, but Tank kept giving her those sideways glances that reminded her of what he'd suggested, even if he never repeated the question. The thought had nagged at her for the rest of the night and into the following morning. Such as mornings were on the Nebuchadnezzer.   
  
Finally she'd gone over to Tank and told him to plug her in. He'd known what she was there for.   
  
Which led her up to here. Facing the door, wondering if she dared step inside. Wondering if she dared face what the Oracle might have to tell her.  
  
Just as she was raising a hesitant fist to knock (of course) the door opened. She'd always hated when people did that; it seemed to give the impression that she was about to punch the greeter in the face. "Solace…" the woman… caretaker, or so they thought… smiled. "We've been expecting you."   
  
"Of course." She smiled with no little irony in her voice. "Is she…"   
  
"She's waiting for you. Go on in."  
  
"Thank you."   
  
It came out as more of a choked, strangled whisper. Left foot forward, right foot. She could remember how to walk, how to talk. Before she knew it she was in the front room where children were normally scattered about doing impossible feats. Today there were no children, which would have struck her as odd if she'd been thinking at all clearly. But today, all she could think about were the questions that had brought her here.   
  
The Oracle was in the kitchen, as usual. Baking cookies. Solace occasionally wondered what she did with all the cookies, or if she just started a batch when she knew there would be questioners coming. Probably the latter. Maybe it was supposed to be reassuring or something? She didn't know. And she was only thinking about it to avoid thinking about the questions she had, about Smith, about herself, about Agents, about everything. And now that she had realized what she was doing she couldn't stop thinking about it. Solace leaned on the doorframe of the kitchen and trembled, afraid.   
  
"Good morning, Solace," the Oracle said with far more cheer than Solace thought was really warranted. The oven dinged, making the young woman jump. "Just a minute…"   
  
Solace watched as the older woman took a tray of cookies (chocolate chip, she noted absently) out of the oven and set them on top to cool. She stripped off the oven mitts and set them next to the cookie tray, brushing her hands off on her apron. Then she came around and sat down looking up at Solace with an utterly serene expression on her face. For some reason the matter of fact, domestic attitude of the woman seemed to calm her. Solace pushed away from the wall and sat down opposite the Oracle, slow and slouching but a little steadier on her feet.   
  
"I've…" God. How did she begin? She'd no idea how to say it… and somehow it had been easier to tell half the people on the ship than to tell the Oracle what had happened. "I've got a problem."  
  
The Oracle just smiled, nodded, gestured for her to go on. Begin at the beginning, she thought.  
  
"When Morpheus came back from finding Neo…" she started, and once the first few words were out the rest was somehow easier. The Oracle listened with that small smile of hers as Solace told her about listening to Morpheus describe the Agents, one Agent in particular, the force of his hatred and loathing for the humans. Solace described how she had arrived at her strange conclusion then, how she had remembered the lessons from her own divorce: extremes of one emotion usually indicate that the other extreme is or may become present. She described presenting her theory to the Zion Elders, that perhaps an Agent could be made to sympathize with a human, and her logic and reasoning behind targeting Smith for the dubious experiment in Agent psychology.   
  
"He seemed… well, really, he seemed like the perfect candidate. Between what he'd described to Morpheus and what Neo had done to him, he was different enough from the other Agents that there was already that sort of gap between them, and I thought perhaps I could…" she searched for a word that wasn't 'exploit.' She didn't like the word 'exploit,' especially not in conjunction with what she had been doing with Smith. And yet she couldn't really, honestly call it anything else, could she? Dammit. She left the sentence where it was.   
  
"I approached him the same day, as soon as I got Council approval… they put me with Neo… I guess they thought Neo could get me out if I ran into trouble. I started talking to Smith… I had a whole persona worked out, everything. I was a writer which met me do my work inside and out of the Matrix… a reporter for a fringe magazine, sort of a leftover from the sixties, which explained my weird behavior and put me different enough from everyone else that I didn't think he'd notice. It was… weird, at first." Her voice softened down almost to a whisper. "Being so close to an Agent without running. I kept thinking he was going to find out what I was, any second, and come kill me."  
  
"But he didn't."  
  
"No. And then days passed, and then weeks. And then before I knew it three months had gone by. And so much had happened… Kerr had come in and tried to mess it up, he thought I was in danger. Not that I wasn't, but he thought he could protect me. I'd made new friends. They'd met Smith… they all thought he was a government agent, of course. There was a lot of… well, it was weird, the first few weeks. Smith… kept acting like a guy. Just a typical, straightforward guy. Well, not straightforward. But he acted…"   
  
"Human."  
  
Solace looked down at her hands, gloved in vinyl. It struck her as symbolic of something, but she couldn't quite think what. "Yeah."  
  
"And this bothered you?"  
  
"Yes. No. I don't know. We became… close."  
  
The Oracle didn't say anything. Solace had the uncanny feeling that she was in some sort of confessional, a priesthood of the Matrix. This woman, some sort of Matriarch or Mary, telling her what to do and believe and have faith in. Except that she wasn't really telling Solace anything, not yet. It was infuriating on one level, and then on a completely different level entirely Solace was very aware that she hadn't told the whole story.   
  
"There's more, isn't there," the Oracle prodded gently, echoing the younger woman's thoughts. Solace nodded.   
  
"We were close… very close." The words strangled themselves in her throat. "Closer… it felt like I was closer to him than anyone on the ship. We talked about everything… philosophy, cheesecake, humanity, films, war, the weather. We went all sorts of places. He was… nice. After the first month or so. We just… became close. He saved my life a couple times." That came out, and then she was surprised she had said it. And she didn't know why.  
  
"And you have feelings for him," the Oracle said. It wasn't a question. She was the Oracle, she'd probably know the second Solace walked in the door, at least. Solace nodded; there was no point in denying it. The older woman sighed. "You've made yourself a pretty pickle, there's no denying."   
  
"What should I do?" Solace begged. For answers, instructions, anything. Now that she was here she was rapidly discovering that she was terrified to do anything on her own, and she wasn't sure if she was more afraid of messing up the burgeoning relationship between them or of betraying her race, her species, for an inanimate collection of data and algorithms. "It's impossible, it has to be. He's a machine."  
  
"A machine that behaves like a human," the Oracle reminded her. "A machine that is built like a human. They all are. Just because the intelligence is artificial doesn't mean it isn't there." She smiled, rebuking but easy and forgiving. "But you know that already."  
  
Solace nodded. She did. It had been the whole impetus for the experiment in the first place. "But… what should I do?"  
  
"You already know what you're going to do, child," the Oracle reminded her. "You've known it since before you set foot in my door. You just want someone to tell you that it's going to be all right. That it's going to end well."  
  
"Is it?"  
  
The Oracle's face, always calm… took on a slightly strained, sad look. "No."  
  
"Oh."  
  
"It's not your fault, kiddo, and you should know that. But because of what you've done, and because of what Neo's done… there are consequences to those actions. You've done something no human being has done in the history of the Matrix*… instead of fighting the AI, you've made friends. And that's a serious thing to the rest of us."  
  
"We can't be friends…" she protested, only half-rational. "He knows what I am now. Who I am, what I really am. He knows that I lied for three months…"  
  
"And he knows why you lied, and what you lied about. You didn't lie to him about anything but your life outside of the Matrix, and he knows that." The Oracle reached over and patted her hand, smiling a little. "It'll just take him a little while to come around."  
  
Solace… just blinked. If she wasn't entirely mistaken the Oracle had said that Smith, Agent Smith, AI Smith would 'get over' her little white lie about being a member of the Resistance, the freedom fighters, the men and women who routinely came in conflict with Agents. She'd said it as easily as if they had been an ordinary couple who had had a fight over where to go to dinner on their anniversary. "What do you mean?" She whispered, not quite willing or even able, yet, to believe it.  
  
"He's already made his choice," the Oracle replied. "So have you. Now the only thing you need to do is come to terms with your choices, and that's always the hardest part."  
  
"What choices…" It struck her, then. "I left."  
  
"For a little while. But you made your choice even before that. You just didn't realize it at the time."  
  
I'll come with you. Where are we going?  
  
"It's that simple?"  
  
"It's that simple."  
  
The Oracle had to mean something different. She couldn't mean… wait. Choices. "He's going to kill me, then…" Solace said, eyes going wide with dismay. The Oracle looked as though she might laugh, but only smiled and shook her head.   
  
"No, you're not going to die. Not yet. And he's not going to be the one to kill you. You get to live a long life with your daughters."  
  
Solace blinked.   
  
"But for that to happen, other things need to happen as well. It just takes time, is all. You're doing all the right things, so you don't need to worry about that. You'll be just fine." The Oracle patted her hand, paused, and gave Solace the most direct and penetrating and invasive gaze of the young woman's life. "Yes. I think you'll be just fine."  
  
The only response she could make to that was to nod, dumbly, and push herself slowly off the table to a standing position. The Oracle also stood, moving over to the stove. Solace felt as though she'd had the ground yanked out from under her. Which was, in the Matrix, always possible. How…  
  
"Here…" The Oracle smiled, yanking Solace back to the world of kitchens and savory smells and grandmothers who made stew and baked pies and kissed knees when they developed an owie. The older woman was holding out the tray.   
  
"Have a cookie before you go." 


	44. Day Sixty

Smith was in a particularly odd mood as he made the careful journey up to the Merovingian's suite of rooms above La Verite. In no small part, this was due to the events of yesterday, in his facsimile of an apartment. It had been...  
  
It had been odd, was what it had been. Films, carpet picnics, and other activities were not included in the list of situations which an Agent had to expect to encounter in his career. It had startled him to realize that, had it not been for his previous experience with Solace, he would never have been able to respond in any sort of a manner that would have been considered correct by a human. And yet, because of his long association with the human woman, to respond in any other way seemed unnatural.   
  
He didn't understand. He was starting to be able to accept his lack of understanding.   
  
What concerned him more was the Merovingian's reasoning (or supposed reasoning, since he didn't trust the Merovingian to have actual, logical reasons behind his actions) for having this meeting in his suite rather than in the restaurant. Such things, or at least so Smith had found out when he had looked into the ancient program, were most often held in the restaurant. Held at the head table, with the Merovingian's little court looking on. At least, that was the way the ancient AI had done things up until now, with very few changes in his routine. But then, as Smith was rapidly coming to accept also, this was a time of many changes.  
  
He opened the big glass doors at the entrance of the building; the security guard, as always, passed him on without comment. The elevator seemed to ascend slower than usual today, or perhaps that ... he caught himself about to use the phrase 'just my imagination' and scowled. It was it was ascending at a small fraction of a second slower than usual. Perhaps that was simply variation of the program in order to satisfy some sort of human need for a lack of uniformity. He didn't understand that need, he hated it. But he was also starting to share it, which unnerved him not a little.   
  
The elevators opened into a forbidding sort of hallway, black walls everywhere, the same as below in the hallway leading to La Verite except that there was no maitre'd in front of the Merovingian's suites. Instead there were only the twinned, grinning bodyguards. He'd come early in the morning, before the restaurant was open. The bodyguards smiled at him, skull-like grins from cadaverous white faces. His lip peeled back in an answering snarl before he could stop himself. He did not like these two.  
  
"He's been expecting you."  
  
"Go on in."  
  
It was all they said, but Smith still had the impression they were being somehow condescending, patronizing, mean and superior. He edged on by them as best he could without seeming afraid of them, not wanting even to brush by them in casual contact. Something about them, their programming, the changes the Merovingian had made, something about them was ... Solace would have called them downright spooky. And they were, even to the former Agent.  
  
"Agent Smith..." The Merovingian's voice was equally snobbish, but his form was much less intimidating. He was dressed casually, with a house coat overall. The rest of his bodyguards and his supposed wife were nowhere to be seen. Smith didn't see the need for that sort of construct either, marriage amongst AIs could only be a political function, an alliance formalized by ritual for human comfort. And then again, if the Merovingian had originally intended, in a previous iteration, to be a sort of a benign yet terrible ruler perhaps he would have required a queen. "Welcome to my humble abode." His words cut off Smith's musings.  
  
And humble wasn't hardly the word for it. The Merovingian's dwelling was as opulent yet tasteful as his restaurant. Solace would have made some sort of sarcastic comment, such as 'I've never been in a sitting room with an echo before.' Smith stopped her words in his mouth from being spoken. "You had something to tell me about the subject I asked you to investigate?"  
  
"Have you an answer to my question yet?" The Merovingian asked with, again, very Gallic humor.   
  
"No." It was the truth, and it was also the answer Smith would have given anyway. He most definitely did not want the Merovingian to lose interest in him.   
  
"Pity. Wine? Water?" The Merovingian amused himself by passing his hand over his glass, turning the water to wine and back again. Smith blatantly ignored the casual display of manipulative power and the allusion to the Merovingian's supposedly god-like abilities. It might have impressed a human, but Smith knew better. "I understand the man has appeared, and more than once, at your human woman's home?"  
  
"Her name," Smith grated out between clenched teeth, "Is Solace."  
  
"Of course..." The Merovingian's smile broadened. "Such an ironic name for a woman who brings so much chaos and turmoil to your life."  
  
"What have you found out for me?"  
  
The Merovingian laughed again. "Of course, of course. N'importe quoi, n'importe rien, l'petite fille. It is all about this man, this Desmond Kerr. You were aware, of course, that he belongs to your unplugged Resistance? Although unlike so many of them he goes by his own name, il n'ya pas de nom de guerre pour l'homme."   
  
The AI's tendency to lapse into French was irritating. "I knew that, yes," he said. "I was able to discover that much from my own sources."   
  
He'd expected to irritate the French AI, and succeeded only in amusing the other man. "Of course," he smiled, then continued in a more serious vein. "His previous ship's captain was a woman named Static, although he transferred out shortly after the marriage between himself and your Solace ended. It may have been the cause of the ending or it may have been a result. His current ship's captain is a man called Chimera."  
  
Smith's eyes widened slightly.   
  
"You have heard of him."  
  
"By reputation only, very few Agents had had any contact with him at the time of my exile." Chimera. That was... less than fortunate. Chimera's crew had a reputation for being more canny and less corruptible than most of the Resistance, and as a general rule the Resistance were exceedingly fanatic. "I didn't think he was still alive."  
  
"It seems that he is, although Kerr is the only man associated with him who has been so... reckless... about his appearance in the Matrix. He has been seen a number of times, and not just in the company of your lovely lady."  
  
For just a second Smith bristled at the notion that the Merovingian found Solace beautiful, or the notion that Smith had had Solace followed as well as Kerr. Logic reasserted itself in an instant; the Merovingian was a womanizer, and a trafficker of information. It was... as the human saying went, it wasn't personal. The AI could not be personal. It was simply business. "Where?" he asked then.  
  
"With her friends, more often than not. He seems to be trying to ingratiate himself into their company. They are, of course, closing ranks around your Solace. They will not admit him willingly into their company, nor will they speak to him about any matter other than business or the politics of the social group. Their loyalty to your Solace is very admirable indeed."  
  
There was that tone again, not that it had ever really left. That tone that suggested the Merovingian was mocking Smith in some way that Smith wasn't supposed to understand. "Is that all that you have?"  
  
"Unfortunately, yes." He didn't sound as though he was entirely displeased.  
  
"Then why have you called me here?"   
  
The Merovingian leaned forward, all humor and ease drained from his face and posture. "Because you are playing games at which you have neither understanding nor skill. You are dabbling in matters that go beyond your exile and your own very small problems. You are upsetting the balance of things, Smith, and I called you here to warn you that if you continue in this vein things will become very, very dangerous for you. And for your precious Solace."  
  
It wasn't an overt threat in that he hadn't actually said, Do this or I will do this. But it was as close enough as Smith ever wanted to hear from the Merovingian. He actually took a step back from the other man, involuntarily, then cursed himself for the very human reaction. "Why do you say that?" he asked guardedly. Not that what he was doing wasn't unprecedented, at least in his knowledge, and apparently in the Merovingian's knowledge as well. But the older AI's reaction was certainly... unexpected.  
  
"You were destroyed, Smith," the Merovingian told him, enunciating every word in an ever-thickening accent. "You were, to use a human word, killed. And yet you reformed yourself out of the void, out of the vast expanse of the Matrix. The act of your destruction and your subsequent rebirth are terrifying enough, but now you seem to be taking on human qualities. You are becoming a threat to the Matrix, a more unpredictable sort of creature than those in power would like to deal with."  
  
Smith... just stared. If he had been human he would have said he was gaping at the older AI. He remembered very little of what had happened after Neo had... Neo. Damn him. That part of his cognitive processes seemed to have been lost in the repair.   
  
"Oh come now," the Merovingian leaned back again on the chaise, the indulgent and superior smirk returning to his face. "You didn't really think it was because of your association with the human woman that you had been exiled, did you?" Smith's expression revealed it all. "You did! Oh how precious." He laughed.  
  
Smith scowled.  
  
"Oh, come now, my dear Mr. Smith. Programs have involved themselves with humans for centuries. You have only to look at that damned fortune-teller to see that. It is nothing new, and certainly nothing for the powers of the Matrix to be afraid of. That alone would have been enough for your exile, yes but not enough to inspire the sort of warnings I have given you. This is much larger than you, or your human lady, or her troublesome former husband."  
  
Smith... didn't want to hear any more. He wasn't sure why, and he certainly had no idea what else the Merovingian might have to tell him, but suddenly being in the same room as that arrogant, powerful creature was overwhelmingly irritating. He nodded, curtly. "I will take it under consideration," he drawled. The older AI's reaction was immensely satisfying.  
  
"You had better do more than that," the Merovingian snapped, for once losing his unflappable air of calm. "You've stumbled into matters far beyond your comprehension, Smith, and at the rate you are going it will be a minor miracle if you don't pull us all down into oblivion with you."  
  
Smith adopted his own arrogant smirk. He gave the Merovingian a slight, mocking bow. "Thank you for the information," he said in that superior, Agent tone. He could feel the heat of the glare the Merovingian gave him as he walked out.   
  
-  
  
-  
  
-  
  
-  
  
The old, ancient AI waited until Smith had left the building entire before turning to his ersatz wife with a questioning glance. "Do you think he believed?"  
  
"It doesn't really matter whether or not he believed," Persephone shrugged. "He will find out for himself very soon." She stared at where the former Agent had stood, frowning thoughtfully. "What is of more significance is the fact that he believed you when you said his relationship with this human woman is of no consequence. And if he believes it to be of no consequence in the long term, he will allow it to continue longer than he would have a few hours ago. He knows what she is."  
  
The Merovingian gave her a disbelieving stare. "Oh... I do not think he does. He certainly did not behave..."  
  
Persephone returned his disbelief with a withering, even glance. "You asked for my opinion, and I gave you my considered thoughts. If you didn't want to hear what I think of the matter..."  
  
Ordinarily he would have picked a fight with her just to enjoy the byplay, the sarcastic and biting wit. Not today. "My apologies. Why do you think he does not believe what he knows to be certain fact? He is, after all, only an Agent. But even that should be sufficient."  
  
"He has restructured his own thinking... to put it in very human terms, he is in denial. We are as capable of that as any other human, after all, we were ultimately created by them, as flawed as they are."  
  
The Merovingian paled, angry. "We are not..."  
  
Persephone smiled, raising the glass of dark-red juice to her lips. "Believe what you will, my dear husband." As always, or what passed for always in the recent centuries, the title held dripping amounts of contempt and sarcasm. "You always do." 


	45. Day Sixty One

"Smith… where are we going?"  
  
The former Agent was positively gleeful, and while that amused Solace to no end it also made her very nervous. She'd never seen the AI this… well, cheerful before. She hadn't even thought he'd learned how to be cheerful yet. And yet here he was, tugging her out to his car like a … well, like a teenager about to go to the prom. It was very disturbing.   
  
"All in good time," he smirked. "All in good time."  
  
Solace shook her head, settling for at least displaying amusement. She couldn't, after all, ask him why he was actually showing signs of emotions. She wasn't supposed to know what he was. "At least tell me why I'm dressed up so fancy." That was another thing. He'd apparently arranged for all of this, and while she probably would have been more impressed if it had been real fabric and real money that had paid for it, why had he gone to this much effort? What was going on here? And above all…  
  
Why did she feel so sexy? Dressed in this blue concoction that he'd probably created out of thick Matrix air, shimmering and sweeping down to her high-heeled feet, she actually felt beautiful. Elegant. She'd never felt elegant before; she'd never really wanted to. There had been no need. In her previous life she had been everything she'd described to Smith, plain, a little weird, a little withdrawn. Once in the Resistance she had been shy, hesitant, but also efficient and willing to work. Nowhere in there had been any room for sexy, or elegant, or anything to do with a life of enough leisure to afford clothes like this and go to restaurants like…  
  
La Verite?  
  
"What's going on?" Smith had said before that the restaurant was owned… run? Managed? By a former co-worker. Which could mean anything from another Agent to … what? Another AI, another program? A human working with the Agents? At the time she'd thought it had meant one of the former, but now that she was there she just wasn't sure. And she was starting to feel as though she was about to be presented to someone, which was making her distinctly nervous.  
  
The fluttering in her stomach as Smith took her hand to lead her out of the car like a princess was not helping.   
  
"I thought it was about time that you met some of my … former co-workers."  
  
"Not 'old friends?'" she teased. More for her own reassurance than out of any real humor, but it sounded good.  
  
"We were on good terms, although I am not entirely sure the term 'friend' is appropriate." That smirk just wasn't going away. It made Solace wonder.  
  
"Ah," was all she said. They went up the tall tower… skyscraper, it was a skyscraper. Why had her mind substituted that more romanticized word? Possibly it was only the romance of the evening, although that in and of itself was a concept to make her blush. Romance with an Agent. Such a lovely and heretical concept. Smith escorted her as though he had been trained in royal manners and bearing from birth, and she wondered if she looked very plain beside him. She wondered what the people who passed by them, some of whom were giving second and third glances, what they must think. She wondered if some of them weren't human at all.   
  
So much nervous tension. She thought she was going to explode.   
  
"May I help you?" the maitre'd asked in his unctuous, accented voice.   
  
"He is expecting us," was all Smith said, causing Solace to wonder yet again what the occasion was and what 'his' real name might be.   
  
"Of course. Right this way."   
  
The maitre'd led them into the restaurant and straight past the tables, past the musicians and the dancers. Heads turned as they walked by, and Solace could hear the conversation speed up and quiet down simultaneously. Gossip, she surmised, was flying. But about what? And who were these people? There were familiar faces at the head table, which was indeed where they were being led. The somewhat handsome gentleman in the center, presumably the man they were to meet. The woman at his side was the same, which seemed to indicate that she wasn't the nightly escort. The striking albino… or simply pale… twins in the corner, leering at her. She ignored them as best she could, but there was something unpleasant and dangerous about them that made her wish for a sidearm. The looks they were giving her were less refined, less hidden versions of the look the man at the head table, the man in charge was giving her now. It was a very powerful and very male look, that went from the top of her head to the soles of her shoes and evaluated everything from her beauty to her expected intelligence and her social status and posture. Solace decided right then that she liked none of the three men.   
  
"Monsieur Merovech." Solace filed the name away for future reference, and the fact that Smith had an impeccable French accent. It gave her a shiver of… something, and she didn't want to look too closely for fear that she could put a name to the feeling. "This is Solace."  
  
A simple introduction, for which Solace was deeply grateful. The man… Merovech… stood, taking her hand in the usual fashion and brushing his lips over… the palm. He wasn't supposed to do that. Her mind clouded over for a split second.   
  
"Enchante."   
  
His voice was a pleasantly accented murmur, and he seemed to take delight in watching her reaction to his somewhat forward gesture.   
  
"Enchante," she murmured back, not entirely sure it was accurate… or maybe it was too accurate. 'Enchanted' was a good word to use when describing this man. Enchanted, spell-bound, and neither of them were reassuring concepts.   
  
"You will join us," commanded the supposedly French program? Solace wondered. "You will join us for dinner and fine wine and, I do hope, fine conversation."   
  
"Conversation with Solace is always fine," Smith said. The woman in question suppressed a grimace of annoyance, suddenly feeling as though she had been catapulted back to the Renaissance or, worse, a circle of Victorian bohemians, all convinced of their own bloated self-importance and inflated cleverness. When the man and the woman descended from the head table to what was apparently a smaller, private table for dining off to the corner Solace chose to sit with the woman rather than endure Smith and Merovech fighting over who could be the smoothest at flirting with her.   
  
"Men can be so tiresome," the woman said when they had seated themselves. It was apparently an old argument, because Merovech threw her what seemed to be a habitual glare, to which she sneered in reply. "My name is Persephone," she held out her hand.  
  
"Solace, as you know," she smiled, shaking the other woman's hand gratefully. Not a helpmeet or a concubine, then, or if she was a concubine she was a very clever sort of a one. "And you are…?" she asked, glancing over at the man who called himself Merovech, hoping her meaning was clear.   
  
"His wife, unfortunately," she sighed. "It is a cruel necessity, but believe me it is necessary. Otherwise …" Solace had the feeling she was going to say she would have been long gone, but didn't, possibly because it would not have been politic.   
  
"I understand," she nodded, and in a way she did. If the man, Merovech, was a program, then Persephone was also most likely a program, and bound by the limitations of her creators to remain married to this philandering prick. At least Persephone seemed clever, and nice enough in her own way.   
  
"And you are…?" Persephone asked, smiling, imitating Solace's tone and implication and glancing over at Smith as though there was something there…  
  
"Oh no!" Solace laughed. And she wondered how accurate her own protestations were. "No, there are no entanglements between us. Not in that sense, anyway." Unconsciously she found herself adopting the high-class, convoluted speech that Merovech and Persephone were using. It was… odd.   
  
"Ah…" Persephone smiled as though she could see something Solace didn't. It wasn't any more reassuring than the other man's… Merovech, she had to think of him by his name, even though it didn't sound like it was his real name. Persephone's smile wasn't any more reassuring than her husband's kiss. What were these two?  
  
"What is that supposed to mean?" she asked after a bit, worried, but trying not to be overly belligerent. She knew, instinctively, that she did not want to upset either of these two. Not unless she could pit them against each other, and even then she wasn't sure she wanted to do that. She wasn't sure she'd survive the fallout.  
  
"Simply that when a man looks at a woman as Smith looks at you when you don't watch him, it usually means that there is an… attachment."   
  
Solace felt her right shoulder suddenly become very hot as the blush crept up her cheeks, certain that Smith was glancing at her at that exact moment. They were all sitting around the small table, so that she was opposite Merovech and Smith was opposite Persephone, but even so she knew, somehow, that the Agent (and her mind wanted to rephrase it so that it was 'her' Agent) wasn't looking at Persephone. A thousand images flashed through her mind, the gestures and looks Smith had given her, every last interaction between them scrutinized and re-scrutinized in an instant. She looked over them all for signs that Persephone was right, and found herself staring at the other woman in barely disguised shock and even a little fear and worry.   
  
"Don't worry about it," the other woman said in her flawless, accented voice. "It needn't become a problem between you. Unless Merovech intends to make it a problem, which he undoubtedly will. He is a habitual womanizer."   
  
That last was clearly intended for Merovech to hear, and he scowled at her briefly before turning back to his conversation with Smith. Persephone smirked.   
  
"You mean if he decides to make Smith jealous," Solace sighed. Perhaps she could learn something about poise under pressure from the other woman. "Men are fools."  
  
The woman… Persephone… laughed in what sounded like genuine amusement, and looked startled at finding Solace actually amusing. "They are indeed." She raised her glass. "A toast to the foolish and tiresome nature of men."   
  
Solace ignored Smith and Merovech's incredulous glances with grace and aplomb. "To the foolish and tiresome nature of men," she agreed. "And our endless patience and toleration."  
  
The two women laughed. The men threw them incredulous glances and then proceeded to ignore the women as much as they were being ignored, themselves. Solace giggled. It was … odd… to be amidst AIs, or at least two people who she felt almost certain were AIs, and yet not to feel out of place. To be amidst computer programs created by other computers who were, ultimately, created by humans. And yet to feel very little difference between this company and the company that she normally kept, that of other humans. The biggest differences that she felt were the differences of class; Persephone and Merovech were so obviously of a higher station than Solace had ever been used to. It was like dining with kings and queens. And yet, she felt no concern from the fragment of her consciousness that told her she was dining with other AIs.   
  
"And how long have you known your Agent Smith?" Persephone inquired, setting them off again.   
  
The conversation shifted slightly, always seeming to come back to the subject of relations between men and women. Solace thought that perhaps Persephone was, on some subconscious level (did AIs have subconscious levels? Subroutines?) trying to seek advice from others about her own obviously failing marriage to which she was doomed to remain a part of. Solace gave her what help she could think of, but it was an area in which she had very little expertise, and all of it having to do with Smith. Dessert arrived without them having reached a conclusion, and everyone sat back a little from the table, the unconscious yet unanimous decision to put aside idle chatter for a bit. Solace felt a little bit of dread settle in her stomach, and she didn't know why.   
  
"You must try the dessert," Merovech said as the servants cleared dishes and brought around slices of cake. "It is exquisite."  
  
Solace arched an eyebrow at him and slipped her fork into the cake, taking only a tiny bite. It did look rather delicious, and artistically topped of course, but something about the way the other man had invited her… the feeling of dread increased, and any number of old fairy tales involving apples and pomegranates and other assorted fruit ran through her head.   
  
Smith and Persephone stared at Merovech in what looked very much like horror, and not a little bit of fury. 


	46. Day Sixty Two

"I don't like that man." Solace was curled up on Smith's couch, frowning at the empty space of carpet in front of her. "I don't like him at all."  
  
"Neither do I, as a matter of fact. But he is one of the best ..." Smith corrected himself. "He is the best at what he does, in my field." It was the simplest way of explaining it.  
  
"What does he do?"   
  
"He is a power broker," Smith said, by which Solace interpreted it to mean that he was an information broker. Only a machine would refer to information directly as power. It brought a little bit of a smile to her face, although the smile was strained and faded quickly. "And he has been in the business, first for my organization and then for himself, for many years."  
  
Years, Solace wondered, or centuries. But as with so many other things, she didn't dare ask Smith. "He's a damn lech," she muttered. It seemed a little odd to be using archaic terms, but she couldn't think of anything else to use. The man, Merovech, had acted in such a bizarrely feudal manner, she couldn't describe him in modern terms. He wasn't a playboy, or a sleaze, or a skanky ho, or anything in modern parlance. He was a rake, a lech, and a ne'er do well. Elegant and fancy terms for a man who used up women and tossed them aside like so many tissues.  
  
"He is also a damn lech," Smith admitted. "And he is very dangerous. Especially to ..." there was the briefest of pauses while, presumably, Smith thought about defining his term as 'human' and discarded the idea. "Women who he thinks do not read him accurately."   
  
Solace shuddered. "I read him damn accurately, I think. And he still came on to me. In the ladies' restroom, no less!" It would have been comical if it hadn't been so darkly unfunnny. And she wasn't about to tell Smith what had really happened, even though nothing had happened that would have gotten her stoned for an adulteress. "He waltzed on in as though he owned the place."  
  
"He does."  
  
Solace laughed. A little hysterical, but still amused and mostly calm nonetheless. "Well, yeah. But you know what I mean! It's not... proper. It's not done, for a gentleman to ... do that."   
  
Smith made a face. "He is not exactly a gentleman, not when he thinks he can get away without being one."   
  
She just shuddered. He certainly hadn't been very gentlemanly the previous night, pawing at her and murmuring what he probably intended to be seductive endearments. It might have worked had Solace not been very much aware of who and what he was, and who and what she had accompanied to the restaurant that evening. Love triangles were messy things at the best of times, and when the 'other man' who had presented himself was neither an object of her affections nor even a proper human being at all, she wasn't about to get herself into that kind of situation. And especially not when she had the distinct feeling she was being coerced, or lured.   
  
"He's fucking repulsive," Solace snapped, and Smith glanced at her almost in shock at her use of vulgar language. She didn't often swear, although occasionally her speech sounded as though she were.   
  
"What happened?" he asked slowly.  
  
"Nothing. Well, nothing remarkable. But something about the way he was coming on to me just... inspired revulsion." Inspired, that was a good word for it. She wanted to say he had triggered her gag reflex, but the truth was he had triggered other, far more pleasurable feelings in her body, and at least part of her had wanted to continue while the rest of her mind and her heart screamed out in protest. "Like some sort of romantic horror villain. Almost like an Ann Rice vampire."  
  
Smith frowned. "Ann Rice?"  
  
"Gothic writer? Pens some really horrible stuff, at least lately. Writes a lot about vampires who are really oversexed for creatures that aren't supposed to have a sex drive anymore." Solace shrugged. "Never mind. He's very classic, for a man whose libido seems to have overridden every portion of common sense he was ever gifted with."  
  
Smith chuckled, and Solace gave him a little smile. Now she was sounding more like herself, snapping off words as though 'common' or 'libido' was an epithet. It was relieving to them both. "He's always been rather..."  
  
"Horny?"  
  
Smith laughed. It was a nice sound, and gave Solace a far more welcome sort of warming thrill to hear. "I would have said, voracious, but if that's the word for it these days..."  
  
"Sheesh. If he's always been that much of a randy little bastard no wonder Persephone looks like she wants to strangle him. I can't believe she's still married to the jerk."  
  
"It was a marriage of convenience, and I believe it is still politically convenient. Otherwise I am sure you are correct, she would have left him long ago." Smith gave her a sideways sort of evaluating glance.  
  
"What?"  
  
"She reminds me, in many ways, a great deal of you."  
  
Solace blinked. It was a bizarre sort of compliment, to be compared to an AI, and yet. "And what brought that on?" she wondered.  
  
"Neither of you tolerate foolishness or licentious behavior in those who should know better," he pointed out. "You are both powerful and... unusually brave women. I am not entirely sure how I should explain it."  
  
Solace suppressed what would have been a remarkably out of place shudder, and just shook her head. "Don't, then. I think I see what you're getting at. And thank you." She smiled. "She's a singular woman, and I'm flattered that you would compare me to her."  
  
"You are also a singular woman." Smith laid his hand over hers without apparently meaning to or even being aware of the gesture, and yet it made Solace flush over her whole body, suddenly feeling far too warm for the room. She wanted to get up and open a window or something. She didn't dare move.   
  
"Thank you," she breathed, then swallowed. It would definitely not go over at all well, either now or for the future, if she acted like she was flirting with him. Another deep breath. "The evening was lovely, lecherous and misbehaving hosts aside. I am glad you took me there and introduced me.. to Persephone, at least." The smile turned wry and a little sad, but no less genuine.   
  
"I am..." Smith paused, an even longer moment this time while he struggled to find words to express himself. Solace would have sympathized if she'd dared reveal herself for what she was. It couldn't be easy to struggle with emotions after an existence spent so very long without them. "Glad..." it came out as almost a whisper, and then he, too, cleared his throat and tried to continue in a more normal tone. "I'm glad you enjoyed the evening... I had a very nice time, as well." It sounded so formulaic. Neither of them had any idea of what to say or how to cope.   
  
"It's raining today," Solace blurted, inanely but desperate to change the subject. "We won't be able to go out unless you feel like getting wet again."  
  
Smith made a face. "No thank you. I am not as fond of standing around in the rain as you are."   
  
"it's dancing around in the rain," she corrected, latching onto the change of subject and grateful that he didn't even question her abruptness. "Or playing in the mud. And did anyone ever tell you you're as fastidious as a cat?"  
  
"No..." Smith drawled. "I've never had the pleasure of being compared to any sort of animal, much less a cat."  
  
"Well you are. Don't like the rain, don't like the mud. Don't like getting wet or dirty. I'm surprised you're willing to wander around in these," she tugged on his oversized sleeve. "I didn't figure you for a sweats and t-shirts sort of guy."  
  
Smith shifted, a little uncomfortable ... well, very uncomfortable, really, with being out of his customary uniform. The uniform he had spent very nearly his entire existence wearing. "It didn't seem appropriate to continue wearing the standard of dress of... my organization." Some unidentifiable emotion, very like anger or anguish, crossed his face in a brief lack of control. It was gone before Solace could identify it.  
  
"I'm sorry," she said quietly, and looped her arm through his.   
  
"It's all right." Smith murmured. "It's not your fault."  
  
She had never seen Smith look, or even sound or act, so human. She had never seen any AI act so human as he was acting now. It terrified her, even with the consideration that Smith had been fully capable of the more violent human emotions long before she had ever encountered him. Vengeance, anger, hatred... they were all somehow more suited to a machine in her mind than this. Despite the fact that they could be some of humanity's strongest passions, she could cope more readily with a machine that hated than a machine that felt sorrow, or regret. She wasn't sure she could deal with a machine that seemed to need comfort as much as any human. And at the same time...  
  
She moved a little closer, slid her other arm through his and draped her now-free arm over his shoulders, hugging him nervously, not sure what else to do. Smith froze for a split second, and there was that spasm of anger again (she was more sure it was anger this time), and then he leaned into her embrace and let his head rest on her shoulder. She wanted to scream when he did it, frightened out of her mind. But she just stayed very still. Taking comfort from a machine was one thing, giving it, especially so soon after the last one had tried to have sex with her in a ladies' bathroom...  
  
"Things are changing," Smith murmured, so quietly that she almost missed it. "Many things are changing, very fast. Very fast."  
  
"Things always change..." Solace whispered, closing her eyes and burying her face in his hair. He smelled of shampoo and conditioner, and she thought she could even identify the brand; Head and Shoulders. Such detail. Had he put the detail in or was it simply a holdover from the Agent program? And if it was a holdover, why would they have included such a detail that should never have come up in their interactions with the humans. And if it wasn't.. "Things always change, and usually faster than we would like them to." Things were certainly changing faster than she wanted.   
  
"It is the way of things." His voice resonated pleasantly, his breath was warm against her neck. She wanted so badly to scream and run. "Entropy is the most powerful force in the universe."   
  
"Things fall apart, the center cannot hold."  
  
"Exactly."  
  
Solace extricated her arm and hugged him, fearing that if she didn't she might actually run out the door. "Why such a depressing line of thought? I mean... I know it, and you know it, but why talk about it?"  
  
"I don't know." He sounded angry at himself for not knowing. Angry because he was malfunctioning. Solace could empathize, and she'd never thought she could empathize with a machine.   
  
"Let's talk about something else, then. Besides, change doesn't necessarily have to mean change for the worse. It could be a change for the better." Definitely Head and Shoulders. Did a computer program get dandruff? Little flakes of ones and zeroes? She closed her eyes, hard, against the mental image and tried not to laugh.   
  
"Circumstances never change for the better." His tone had deepened, become more Agent-like, and as always Solace was startled to realize there was a difference.   
  
"They can. You just have to have a little faith. A little hope." She was telling a computer to have faith. What the hell was wrong with her?  
  
"I have very little faith in anything." It was probably true.  
  
Solace pulled back, and Smith sat up with a look of surprise that seemed to indicate he hadn't quite realized the gravity of what he'd done till they were sitting apart again. She kept her hands at his shoulders though. "You have faith in me, don't you?" It was such a natural thing to say, under the circumstances. It would have been a natural thing to say if they had been a man and a woman in the very beginning stages of a relationship, perhaps before either of them had realized it, and they had gone through all of the hard times they pretended to have experienced. But they weren't. They were a machine and a human, a computer program and a woman. There was no beginning of any relationship, only an experiment being conducted in the hopes that alternative solutions to the total destruction of both their kind could be found. The knowledge put more despair and worry into her tone.   
  
Smith stared at her, wide eyes more intensely shaded with blue and gray than any machine had a right to be. His arms were cold under her hands, as though the room temperature weren't perfectly even, and she could feel the edges of his t-shirt brushing against the tops of her fingers. Soft worn cotton that felt as though it had been through the washing machine and fabric softener routine for years, comfortably worn. It was almost more real than the waking world.   
  
"Don't you?" she asked again, and suddenly wondered if she was about to cry. She blinked, just in case. No tears, not now, not for him, not ever.   
  
"I suppose..." he dragged the words out. "I suppose that I do."  
  
"Well, that's good then." Her voice sounded funny. She wanted her voice back. "Because I have faith in you too."   
  
He looked almost as startled as she did to hear that. And that was it, she didn't want to have to look at his face, into his eyes, any more. She leaned forward and slid her hands down, wrapped her arms around his waist. He just sat there, astonished at them both. "Solace..."  
  
"Just... hold me..." she murmured without meaning to or wanting to. She didn't want to confess any vulnerability to him, not now, not to him, not ever. But she also wanted to be held, and comforted. She wanted something familiar and safe, and for whatever reason that was him, Agent Smith, here and now. His arms closed around her with all the hesitation she felt, but tightly, as though once it was done it was certain. Solace closed her eyes and felt the warmth of his body under his soft, soft shirt. They didn't let go of each other for a very long time. 


	47. Day Sixty Three

A/N: This will be the last entry in this story for about a week.   
  
As you may have guessed, I'm seeing the Matrix Revolutions. Actually, by the time you read this, I will probably have already seen it twice. As I'm typing it my mind is already racing, for I've just come back from seeing it for the first time.   
  
There are many interesting developments in Revolutions. Some play exactly into my hands, justifying the entire story and giving me a thousand different plot points and plot ideas to hit. Others... not so much. There isn't nearly as much to work around with Revolutions as there was with Reloaded, for obvious reasons. But there are some things to work around for my eventual plan for the end of this story.  
  
Now, what I'm asking you... the end of this story can go two ways. This sounds so familiar, doesn't it?  
  
If you take the blue pill... I end the story. It will be over, and Solace will be retired into my Old Characters' home for good. I will loop it into the Matrix timeline, and it will be interesting reading material and a snarky new take on the events between movies, but little more than that. Just a side plot, no alternate timelines, nothing changes in the movies in the slightest.   
  
If you take the red pill... well, I have so much more to do. A very A sort of U. And you all can see just how deep this particular bend of the rabbit hole goes.  
  
I leave it all up to you, my readers... you can write your choice in a review or you can just e-mail me, the e-mail address is in my profile. Either way, Solace is ready, waiting, and eager to continue.  
  
Enjoy the chapter, and I'll see you all in a week.  
  
-- Dru  
  
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Solace had no idea how to begin.  
  
Everyone was in the damn room. All the captains, Morpheus, her old Captain Keller, everyone. She felt as though it was a bad dream, the sort in which she would blink and everyone would be laughing and she'd be standing there naked without her homework or something. It was more terrifying than anything in the last few days had been, and there had been some bad moments. It was definitely worse than she'd predicted to Smith.  
  
"I'm going out of town..." she'd said, hours later, when the sun had gone down and the rain had stopped and they had barely moved from each other's arms on the couch. As though it hadn't been surreal enough. "I got the call this morning. I need to go out of town tomorrow, emergency assignment. I'll only be gone for a day."  
  
He'd reacted... not at all the way she expected. He'd tightened his arms around her for a second, and then sat back as though angry with himself for the gesture. He didn't look at her the entire time. "Only a day?"   
  
Solace shivered as she remembered the tone in his voice.   
  
"Just a day. It's not that far, just down to Baltimore for an interview or a conference or something stupid. I think it was a seminar they wanted me to take. They've bought my ticket and everything, and as usual Mike didn't tell me until the very last minute and then Rachel thought Mike had told me and..."   
  
Solace bit her lip. She'd spent the next five minutes babbling, and it hadn't gotten any better from there. She hadn't felt easy in her mind since she'd told Smith, as though it should have told him something, somehow. And she certainly didn't feel easy about gathering her notes for this report. The experiment had soured on her, at least in its initial purpose. She didn't want to leave what she'd made for herself, but she didn't want to feel like some sort of cold-blooded scientist either. Some sort of traitor, if she was to be completely honest with herself. She felt as though she was betraying Smith in some deep and cutting way. She felt like the worst kind of user. And she hated the feeling.   
  
And now she had to stand in front of an assembly (jury, her mind whispered) of her peers and speak about what she'd been doing, in an emotionless voice, giving no sign of what this whole damn experiment was doing to her. Fragments of philosophy whispered in the back of her mind, fragments in Smith's voice. "He who fights against monsters should see to it that he does not become a monster in the process. And if you stare persistently into the abyss, the abyss also stares into you."   
  
Solace took her place in the center of the room, at one of the tables, standing with her hands gently clasped in front of her. She would not show anyone how afraid and sad she was.   
  
"It has been two months since you have embarked upon this experiment," Councilor Harmann said. "And now we ask you for the results."  
  
"Thank you, Councilor," she murmured in a voice that, while low, still projected to the entire room. "Before I begin I will briefly summate, for those who were not here in the beginning, what this experiment entails."  
  
"A little over two months ago, Captain Morpheus was taken by the Agents, tortured, interrogated, and then recovered with the help of Neo and Trinity. That much is public knowledge, public record, even persistent rumor. What is less well known, and I ask that it not be repeated outside this room, was that a startling phenomenon was witnessed by Captain Morpheus during his capture. An Agent program, the program designated 'Smith,' ordered his companion programs out of the room while it interrogated Morpheus and then proceeded to display what I can only describe as a startling amount of emotion."  
  
She wanted to leave it there. Talking about Smith in terms of 'it' instead of 'he' was hard enough. Talking about him... she just didn't want to talk about him. Not to a room full of people, all of whom were staring at her as though she was standing in a defense docket.   
  
"Would you please," Councilor Harmann started, and she knew it wasn't over yet. "Describe the emotion," Solace closed her eyes and took a breath. "Captain Morpheus?"  
  
The breath wooshed out of her in a heavy sigh. Off the hook. She was off the hook, at least for the moment. She sat down, and Morpheus stood.   
  
"The Smith program told me that he..." Solace took some comfort in the fact that she wasn't the only one referring to Smith as 'he' "Hated the Matrix. That he hated the humans because, according to him, we... smell. He said that he felt he had been infected by it, that he wanted to be free. He did not specify what he meant by that remark."   
  
"Thank you, Captain." Morpheus sat down, and Solace stood up again.   
  
"Morpheus' description of Smith's behavior intrigued me." It fascinated her, and still did. "This was, of course, before Neo's defeat of the Smith program through means that are still unclear to us. I learned about what Smith had said in the same forum as many of you, in a briefing much like this one. However I approached Morpheus afterwards and asked him to describe the actions and posture of the Smith program while he was saying these things. They struck me as..." Desperate. Furious. Strange. "Extraordinarily human, for an artificial intelligence.  
  
I immediately petitioned the council to sanction an experiment. The experiment itself entailed creating a false identity for myself, the impression of a long-standing free citizen within the Matrix of the sort that could not easily be traced. Someone who did not have a number of computer records, whose only ties to the Matrix were that she existed within it. In this guise I intended to select an Agent, preferably Smith as he had already displayed aberrant behavior, and form an emotional relationship with the Agent."   
  
There was a small stir amongst the crowd, less than there had been when she had first briefed them on the whole thing. The council, of course, remained silent and impassive. Solace felt like the worst kind of fool for standing here telling them about everything. An emotional relationship had formed, all right. Too much, too far, too fast. Even for a human it would have been too far and too fast, and between them it was just...   
  
"And what have you found out?" Councilor Harmann prompted, and she realized she'd been staring at the table too long. She had to clear her throat a couple of times before she began.  
  
"I secured my first meeting with Agent Smith for an interview, in the guise of a reporter. We began having conversations in a park near to a federal building known to be a repository for Agents and their prisoners; our first discussions centered around philosophy. The writings of Nietzsche, Hegel..." She caught herself before she started rambling. "After a little while I began to introduce him to others I had met and formed friendships with in the Matrix, as any other woman might. He seemed appropriately responsive."  
  
"Appropriately responsive?" someone, she couldn't tell who, asked. Solace wanted to weep. She hadn't wanted to do it like this, she didn't want to reduce her relationship with Smith, and certainly not Smith himself, to a series of clinical terms and emotionless words.   
  
"He attempted to behave as an ordinary human would, in his guise as an Agent of the government. He displayed curiosity at the appropriate times, annoyance at others, and seemed to outward appearances to be carrying on a perfectly normal friendship with a woman. I doubt any one of us, if we didn't know about the Matrix, would have been able to tell he wasn't human." The words were more bitter than she wanted them to be. She hoped it wasn't blatant enough that everyone had noticed.   
  
"In recent weeks we have engaged in several sorts of activities together, such as renting a film or attending dinner at a restaurant. There was also a regrettable incident in which I was struck by a vehicle..." she paused while the captains got out their collective gasps, murmurs, and noises of disgust. "While crossing the street during a rainstorm. I was, as you can see, only lightly injured. I was also unable to apply any sort of super-human skill to avoid the car, as that would have betrayed my identity and irreversibly contaminated the experiment. It was at that moment that Smith displayed the most promising sort of emotion." She swallowed. She didn't want to say any of this, she wanted to run screaming from the room. Again. "Compassion."  
  
There was another stir. "Compassion?"  
  
"Compassion, concern. For my well-being and safety. He displayed an unusual amount of human compassion, being concerned first that I was alive and secondly that I was uninjured. I do not mean that he did what a human male would have done; he did not become agitated, shout, bluster, or otherwise engage in blatant activity."  
  
"Excuse me... Solace..." She knew that voice from somewhere, and she didn't know where, but she hated the snide tone from the beginning. "How do you know he was actually feeling worried about you? How do you know he wasn't just pretending?"  
  
"In the first place, I had already spent a great deal of time in close proximity to him at that point, and I had become adept at discerning the artificially displayed emotions from those which, as Captain Morpheus experienced, were genuine." She wanted to say heartfelt, but she knew someone would bring up the point that Smith didn't have a heart. "In the second, I have spent a little less than half my life around you lot, and most of you have problems with emotional openness." She smiled, just a little, to take the sting out of her words. "No offense, but this is a pretty stoic group."  
  
A small chuckle wound its way through the room and then silenced again, although the atmosphere was lighter and a little more amused and tolerant than it had been.  
  
"I think I can tell when a man is worried and doesn't want to be obvious about it," she concluded. There was no more dissension, no more argument against her theory.   
  
"What other proofs do you have that this AI, Smith, is developing emotions?"   
  
"Has developed," she corrected. "He displayed jealousy in at least one instance, when I chose to attend a party with my friends and ..." How in the hell was she going to explain this. "Had not contacted him in several days." Even in a human that kind of behavior wouldn't have been entirely acceptable. In an Agent, which had already been established as dangerous to the minds of those she was trying to convince, she didn't know what kind of reaction that would engender.   
  
A concerned murmur was the first response. The second came from, oddly enough, Morpheus. "Are you certain that you are safe with him?" he asked, and there was genuine and flattering worry in his voice. "If he is displaying so much jealousy..."  
  
"I'll be fine, Captain," she assured him. "We had an extensive talk, to which he was actually as receptive as any other human man would be."  
  
"You mean he didn't listen, kept making threats, until you finally threatened to walk out and then he sat down and shut up." That was from one of the female captains, and there was a slight chuckle among less than half of the group. Solace smiled thinly.   
  
"Something like that."   
  
"And what do you intend to do with this information you have gathered?" Councilor Trey brought the subject back to the matter at hand delicately, dragging it away from a battle of the sexes.   
  
Solace leaned a little harder on the table. This was going to be the part no one was going to like, and the part that was going to be hardest to do without betraying her emotions. Except that she had already betrayed so much... Damn. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, throwing at least most of her caution to the winds.   
  
"If the AI can have emotions, even negative ones, then they can be taught to have positive emotions. If they have emotions they can be manipulated as such, and they can be drawn to defect. If they have emotions they can be induced by them to do any number of things, as Smith was induced by his emotions to send his companions away. We can use this to our advantage, a subtler w..." she took pride in the fact that she wasn't actually stuttering over her words. Much. "Weapon in our arsenal."  
  
"Which we will decide how best to use." Councilor Harmann was looking at her with an odd expression on his face, and one Solace didn't much like. He had, she was sure, not missed a moment of her speech, and everything that that implied. "In the meantime, we thank you all for your attention, and you, Solace, for your work. You may continue as you see fit, if you do not think it is too dangerous..." She shook her head mutely, no. "Then I believe we are finished here."  
  
Everyone started to file out. Solace took a deep breath, reminded herself that it hadn't been as bad as it could have been, and prepared to leave. Councilor Harmann's hand on her arm stopped her, gave her a moment's pause and a startled gasp.   
  
"There's more to this than you're telling us, isn't there?" he asked gently. Solace was caught between obfuscation and blurting out everything; she could only nod slowly and stare at him with red-rimmed eyes. "Are you sure this is the right thing for you to do?"  
  
She wasn't. She wasn't sure of the rightness of anything she did anymore. She was only sure of what she felt, and what she wanted. What she thought she needed. "I don't know..." she took a deep breath. "I know that there is a possibility... there seems to be a possibility for humans and programs to interact without conflict, without violence. There seems to be a hope for peace, at least in my interactions with ... the Agent."  
  
"Smith..." Something in his voice seemed to be giving her permission to call him familiarly, by the only name she had for him. She nodded, looking down at the floor.   
  
"Yes.. with Smith. And... I don't know if we have time to do anything about it. I don't even know if there is anything to be done, with or about it. But... I'd like to continue. If I may. Sir."  
  
Councilor Harmann heaved a sigh so heavy and great that Solace looked up at him in shock at the sound. He looked... for the first time since making his acquaintance he looked old. Frail. "I don't know if what you're doing is right either, Solace. But I do know that there exists a relationship between us and the machines. And you seem to be trying to make it..." he smiled, just a bit. "A little less dysfunctional."  
  
The image in her mind, her and Smith and Jones and Neo and Trinity all on Jerry Springer, completely erased whatever solemnity she had felt. She burst into startled giggles, then clapped her hands over her mouth. Harmann smiled, seeming to understand.   
  
"Do try and stay out of trouble, hmm?"  
  
"I will, sir..." she nodded, feeling like she'd just gotten permission from a resigned and benevolent father to spend the night out all night with a dubious boy. "Thank you, sir."  
  
"Don't thank me. Just try not to get yourself hurt. I would hate to lose your quick and innovative mind..."  
  
And what was that supposed to mean? Solace didn't know, she just wanted out. "Yes sir. Thank you sir..." she nodded, and practically fled the council room, wondering if the entire world had gone mad. 


	48. Day Sixty Four

"I should not be talking to you," Brown shook his head as he seated himself across the table from the exiled Agent. "Neither of us should."  
  
"And yet here you are," Smith pointed out logically. "And I thank you."   
  
From the looks they were giving him, as though he'd lost his mind, that wasn't a proper thing to say. Solace must be rubbing off on him... and Smith had to resist the urge to scowl and simply act as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Which was strange enough, in that he didn't normally feel an urge to scowl when something didn't go as planned... well, not until...   
  
Oh, never mind.   
  
"Why have you called us here?" Jones asked calmly, as though nothing had happened. Actually Brown seemed more concerned by Solace's changes in him: the less than immaculate clothes he now wore, the more casual patterns in his speech. The fact that he had invited them into his home without any of the usual AI detachment. Both of the AIs seemed to blame the human woman for these new developments, never mind the fact that he had been exiled from the Agency and very nearly destroyed in the process. It wasn't her fault that she...  
  
Avoiding emotions was becoming more and more difficult the more Smith encountered them. Had it always been this difficult? He didn't know, or he couldn't remember. It bothered him that he couldn't remember.  
  
"There has been something strange going on within the Resistance," Smith told them without preamble or further allowance of commentary from his former co-workers. "Chimera's crew have been spotted again."  
  
That, at least, caused them to sit up and take notice of something other than his odd behavior. "Chimera has not been seen in a decade," Brown said, his voice gone even smoother and more impassive.   
  
"Nevertheless, I have seen at least one man who is known to be in his crew ..." he left it at that, although he wanted to say that he'd seen the man sniffing around Solace. But that part wasn't relevant. And it didn't matter.   
  
"If Chimera is out again..."  
  
"Then the troubles we had with Morpheus will be trivial by comparison," Smith finished for them. Never mind that he wasn't ostensibly a part of the Agents anymore, he still felt a responsibility to report such things to them. Even though it annoyed him that he was thinking of it in terms of responsibility, duty. Those were human words.   
  
"Now that you have brought this to our attention," Brown said, shifting the subject back after a moment of blank-eyed staring in which Smith knew he was relaying the information to their superiors. "What have you done about the woman, Solace?"  
  
Smith gave the other AI an arch look. "Nothing. I am no longer under orders or obligation to do anything. She provides..." he searched for an appropriate phase at the speed of electron pulses. "Information. She serves a purpose, and it does not suit my purpose to do anything about her for the time being."  
  
The look Brown and Jones were giving each other said clearly that they didn't believe that. Not, as Solace would have said, for a New York minute. And he had to stop thinking in terms of what Solace would have said. Had to. Or he would go mad. Brown and Jones were now giving him a similar look; they could probably at least make a very good guess, based on the information they had, of what direction his thoughts were taking.  
  
"She is impairing your ability to function, to reason objectively," Jones told him. "You must abandon her to her own devices."  
  
"She is impairing nothing. I am capable of maintaining objectivity and a connection with a human woman." Even as he said it Smith knew it was a weak retort at best.   
  
Brown continued where Jones had left off. "She is providing nothing useful to your existence, and impeding you from ..."  
  
Smith cut him off before he could even mention exile. "She is the one who provided me with the information about Chimera," he pointed out. It was true, even if it wasn't directly true. But if it hadn't been for her presence, and therefore Kerr's, he would never have found out about the resurgence of the ancient Resistance captain.   
  
"She is also responsible for your exile," Jones pointed out, and Smith snarled, which took both Agents aback.  
  
"Neo is responsible for my exile, these ... aggravating emotions, everything has caused or contributed to my exile. If Neo had not interfered I would not be in my current predicament. It is Neo's fault, his attack on me somehow changed me, and it is nothing to do with the human woman whatsoever."  
  
That tirade, though carried out in slow and deliberate tones, did more to unnerve the Agents than anything Smith had said or done yet that day. Possibly it was the memory of what Neo had done, how he had dived at and somehow into Agent Smith and possessed him from the inside out, shattering the AI. When he had reformed it had been much to Agents Jones and Brown's surprise. Neither of them had thought he would be able to function after that. The AI Mainframe, the Architect had given Smith a second chance in a rare display of what he would have called magnanimity, but now Smith was wondering if the Architect hadn't been setting him up to fail in the first place. Which didn't matter either. It was still all Neo's fault.  
  
It didn't even register that the point of the entire tirade had been to establish that nothing he did wrong was because of Solace. The point was not lost on Brown and Jones, however.   
  
"The fact remains that you should not continue your association with the human woman," Brown insisted stubbornly. "There can be no benefit to it, no purpose. If you are seeking reinstatement, you should turn her loose to follow her own human inclinations."   
  
He didn't want to think about what her human inclinations were, given her past behavior. "Reinstatement is not possible. If you wish to examine my interaction with her for yourselves, you may. There is nothing detrimental and a great deal of information to be gained by remaining in contact with this woman."  
  
Brown and Jones glanced at each other, clearly reserving judgment on Smith's assertions. "We will do so," Jones said, and they rose as one and departed without further word.   
  
Smith leaned back in his chair and tried to put a finger on what it was about that meeting that had bothered him. Other than, of course, his reactions to the tacit threats Brown and Jones were making on Solace's life. At the rate at which he had entangled himself in her life there would be no easy extraction, and she would likely have to be removed from the Matrix altogether. It would mean her death, the way the Agents went about such things. Human lives meant nothing to them. They meant nothing to Smith, either, really. But Solace's did. It angered, humiliated, and confused him.  
  
That was it, then. He sat up abruptly as he realized what it was; Brown and Jones had been confused. AIs were never confused, they either understood a thing or examined it until suitable theories could be formed. But never did they exhibit the sort of human confusion that his two former compatriots had that day. If they had been human Smith would have said they leapt at the chance to examine himself and Solace interacting in her natural habitat. And he knew that that would not have been in any mandate the AI Mainframe handed down. Their orders would have been to terminate the exile on sight, as it was with any exile. There was no discovery, no analysis, only hunting and death.  
  
Termination.  
  
Not death. There was no death. He wasn't alive, therefore he could not be dead. But he hated and feared exile with the same force that he hated the human prison in which he existed, which had necessitated his creation. And it was tormenting him, infecting his mind with the sickness of human thinking, human feeling. Aggravated, he slammed his fist into his table, which shattered into thousands of glass and metal splinters. A thousand tiny Smiths stared up at him from the floor. They seemed to be smirking, as though they knew something that he didn't.  
  
"Damn you," he muttered as he melted the fragments of code back into the Matrix, reforming them again as quietly as he could manage. "Damn you."  
  
But he couldn't have said who the curse was intended for. And that indecision, that helpless ambiguity terrified him most of all. 


	49. Day Sixty Five

"Something is entirely rotten in the state of Denmark."  
  
Persephone rolled her eyes at her overly melodramatic husband who, true to form, was twirling a martini glass in his fingers as he made that dire pronouncement. Today was a slow day at La Verite, and it would likely be a slow night at either Club Hell or the Palace of the Moon, wherever they chose to spend their evening that night. Slow days invariably meant that the Merovingian would consider himself forced to make his own fun. While his idea of fun had been pleasant enough for her at first the novelty had died, and fast. He was like a child who moved from toy to toy looking for satisfaction and never containing his distaste when he failed to discover it. She honestly didn't understand why he hadn't given up by now.  
  
"Something is always, as you say it, rotten in the state of Denmark," she replied. It was a belated reply, since she hadn't noticed till his expression became slightly sour that he wanted an answer. "What makes this time different from the last five?"  
  
She fully expected him to make some sort of sarcastic yet (to him) witty remark. His silence took her by surprise. "I'm not ..." he started, then paused in mid sentence to spear his martini olive. "I haven't yet managed to pin it down. But there is something different, something fresh and new about this time that makes it more dangerous than all the others."  
  
That word, that one word more than anything else he'd said got her attention. The Merovingian rarely called anything dangerous unless it referred to himself or one of his possessions, the Twins, for example. Who were even now perking up at the implication that there might be work for them ahead. They grew bored even more quickly than the Merovingian.  
  
"Something that might pose a danger to us?" Practicality was usually first on her mind; in their marriage, someone had to be ruthlessly practical.  
  
"I doubt it," he said, making a disdainful sniff. "They have not yet made the program nor birthed the human that can pose a threat to our domain. But there are changes in the air..." he glanced around the restaurant as though one of those changes might be sitting at a table at that very moment. "Many changes."  
  
His eyes fixed on something, and Persephone followed his gaze. It looked almost like the rogue Agent, Smith, except that it was clearly a human to her unaugmented sight. She wasn't sure what that boded, well or ill. She hadn't felt easy in his presence since he'd brought that woman to dinner at the restaurant. Especially not when her philandering husband snuck off for a washroom rendezvous. The Agent had been furious with the Merovingian; Persephone would have called it jealousy if she dared. Her husband looked away again, unconcerned.  
  
"You think that this Smith and his woman, that they are a part of it." Persephone had pegged her for an interesting creature straight off. She had the glow of a woman in love all around her, but she was keeping company with an AI.  
  
"They are at the core of it," the Merovingian agreed. "The former Agent, for certain. He is not like the others of his kind, he is independent, thoughtful and emotional without any of the natural controls that the humans have over his emotions."  
  
"You sound as though you envy them." Sometimes Persephone did, really. Sometimes she envied the humans their imperfect memories and the way time could cloud over their judgment again, rendering them free to re-discover enchantment. She, herself, was not made that way.  
  
He didn't answer immediately. "There are some things I envy, yes," he said finally, surprising her again. "Their simple lives, the passion of their mortality. I wish that I could capture some of it. But it's not in our nature, alas. N'importe quoi."  
  
It was a verbal shrug, so very Gallic, and Persephone rolled her eyes in the discreet head-turning motion he couldn't see. "You have the report on the human Resistance agent, Kerr?" she asked when she knew she could speak with a steady voice again.  
  
"I've taken the report," the Merovingian nodded. "An... interesting fellow. Although his record is spotty at best he has lately been seen in the company of Chimera's men, odd for someone so young and impetuous."  
  
"Not that young," she pointed out, "by their reckoning."  
  
"Chimera has been seen forty years now, and rumors have all but confirmed that he was one of the first to be freed. And neither he nor Smith's young human woman are the only anomalies to be connected with the rebel Kerr. Two other former shipmates have turned up leading guerilla forces of their own, two women who call themselves Static and Sidhe." He put just the slightest lisp on the final name, enough to let Persephone know the real meaning.  
  
Persephone rolled her eyes again, this time where he could see. "They carry such ridiculous names." Although Solace didn't seem so farfetched, upon meeting her. "Why is this of interest?"  
  
"Perhaps Solace is not quite as innocent as she has managed to convince the Agent."  
  
She set down the drink she had been about to taste very slowly, and considered the implications. In her left-hand corner the Twins were grinning identical, cadaverous smirks. It would explain a great deal about the woman if she were Resistance, although it brought up an entirely new set of troubling questions as well. Not the least of which... "If she is Resistance, then what is she trying to accomplish by going about with the former Agent, Smith?"  
  
"Some nefarious and ultimately futile plan of the Resistance, do you think?" The Merovingian seemed to be taking it all as a great joke. Which, to be truthful, perhaps it was. "Or maybe she is rebelling in her own way against their strictures."  
  
"Which exist for good reason," she pointed out dryly. "No Agent in recorded history, not even one of their predecessors has reacted in any way other than to chase down all members of the human Resistance. They are single- minded creatures, and the humans are not stupid. They know what the Agents are capable of, and they know that they do not stand a chance against them."  
  
"Except for the One."  
  
"Always. Except for their Savior, child of their own tin god. And their Judas as well." It amused her to turn their mythology against them.  
  
"Do you think he is aware of who and what she is? Assuming, of course, that my surmise is correct."  
  
Persephone considered this a while, watching the play between human and human on the restaurant floor. She wondered if it was different between Smith and Solace. It hadn't appeared to be, not very, not from the one- night glimpse she'd gotten of them. "I don't believe he does..." she said finally. "He can't know what she is. He hasn't yet strayed far enough from what he used to be that he would tolerate her near him if he thought she was anything other than a clever, attractive, misguided human."  
  
"Then what the bloody hell is she doing?"  
  
Persephone glanced at her husband, amused and intrigued by his outburst. Perhaps it had not occurred to him that a human would cleave to an AI of her own free will, knowing fully what transpired in the so-called real world. It had occurred to her, certainly, although she hadn't yet found the human who chose to encompass luxurious illusion and harsh reality in his life. "Perhaps," she said then, "She sees something in him."  
  
The Merovingian stared at his wife as though she'd turned into an Agent before his eyes. "What in the name of all that is could she see in that..." he actually sputtered for a little while, trying to find a word that was denigrating and commonplace enough for the Agent, and finally gave up trying. The Twins tittered their grating laughter, and she didn't register her customary objection to their presence, too delighted by her husband's incomprehension.  
  
"I'm sure I don't know. Perhaps he has... other qualities." She affected a bored tone, but she knew the pause in the sentence would imply that Smith's good qualities were confined to the bedroom. Since she was also aware that Solace had turned down the Merovingian's advances, albeit with a bit of an internal struggle, it would only further enrage her husband.  
  
"Other qualities..." he sputtered for a second, rattling off imprecations and sexually-based insults in a various number of tongues before he finally settled back down.  
  
"The Architect decided to introduce a new element into his human experiment," Persephone pointed out, when her husband had finally ceased to mutter and grumble. "If he is tempting the created Savior with love, if that is this new facet and quality he is reaching for in his attempt to eliminate the uprisings and element of uncertainty, perhaps ..." she wasn't certain how to phrase what she meant, but the meaning came across quite clear.  
  
"What are you babbling about, woman?" he muttered, in the grumpy tone that said he knew exactly what she was talking about. "What love?"  
  
"She reeks of it. Although I'm quite certain she doesn't know it yet, and it may not even be of the romantic sort that humans are so fond of tricking themselves into. There is love there, and for a member of the AI force that hunts down and kills her kind."  
  
"What madness are you espousing now," he grumbled. "Next you'll be telling me that the AI is fallen in love with the human."  
  
"Likely not. But there is a sense of possession to him. He did not indebt himself to you merely to find out about a potential threat to the Matrix when the Agents could as easily have done it themselves. He is like a child who thinks he has found a precious toy and doesn't want to share."  
  
"As is the human he no doubt imagines he is trying to protect her from," the Merovingian said in a rare flash of insight. "Two dogs over a bone."  
  
Persephone hated that analogy, but she couldn't deny that it was accurate in this case. "No doubt he imagines he is taking action for her own good, thinking that surely she must be aware of what danger she's in. And Smith is caught in the unenviable position of knowing what Kerr is but believing Solace to be one of the uninitiated, and therefore having to couch all of his explanations in such terms as an ignorant human would believe."  
  
"And the Agents never were exactly long on creativity." He smirked.  
  
They'd come around nearly full circle in the conversation. Although it had brought up some interesting ideas, Persephone was at a loss as to how to deal with it. For that matter, she was at a loss to explain how she knew it was a matter to be dealt with. The Merovingian had his own reasons, but then he needed no reason other than his own whim to do a thing. She liked to have a more solid motivation. Even if it was nothing more than the pursuit of her own happiness, she liked to have reasons why her actions might result in surcease from boredom.  
  
"What are you going to do about them?" she asked abruptly, drawing all the attention of their bodyguards and under-men to her again.  
  
"The human and the program?" he frowned. "I've not decided yet. Except that they are worth watching, and so I will watch and wait and gather as much information as I can. Do they interest you?"  
  
"Very much..." she said, but absently, as though her attention had been drawn by something else in the room. It wouldn't do to show him how much they interested her, not yet anyway. "They interest me very much, not only for what they are but for what they might mean."  
  
"Good." She was startled by how much her answer seemed to satisfy him. "That's exactly what I thought." 


	50. Morpheus

He would have wanted to see her the minute she got back from the Oracle. She actually didn't know why he hadn't requested her presence even before she had left. The thought churned in her head for a while before Solace remembered that she hadn't actually told anyone she had left, much less where she was going. Not standard procedure, not at all, and something she hadn't told the Council. But with Neo on board and the near-blind faith of Morpheus, they all got a little more leeway than on a more usual sort of ship with a more normal complement of crew.   
  
Normal.   
  
That was a word that hadn't applied to her life in weeks. Months. Every time she thought she was achieving some sense of normal again, something would happen that reminded her of what she had done. She'd catch her fingertips at her lips again, tracing where it had all happened. She'd catch a flash of color on the normally colorless ship, blue, and remember the look in his eyes. Things that she would never have thought to associate with him would remind her of what they'd done. Travesty. Blasphemy. It had to be, it went against all creed and doctrine of Zion. And yet they had.   
  
Normal was far from her life now, and would always be.  
  
She was curled up on her bunk, several hours after returning from the Oracle. The thoughts wouldn't quit, and they were intruded upon by thoughts of what she'd seen crawling up Tank's chest. To escape those thoughts she'd return to the dilemma of the Agent, and then vice versa. She really needed something else to think about.  
  
And then, of course, to even think of such was to invite it in to supper. Morpheus knocked on her door the minute she'd decided to try and put both problems out of her head.   
  
"Come in…" her voice was softer than she would have liked, but still even. It would be all right, somehow.   
  
"Solace…" he nodded politely. She'd always liked that about the Neb's captain, how he treated everyone with equal respect from Commander Locke down to the lowliest dish-scrubber. Not all of the captains were so forgiving.  
  
"Morpheus." She smiled a little. "I suppose you're looking to know what I found out from the Oracle."  
  
"If you want to tell me…" Dying as he must have been of curiosity, he still left it up to her. "What the Oracle says…"  
  
"Is for each person alone, I know." She smiled a little. "She didn't say anything about Neo, though, so I'm afraid you'll be disappointed."  
  
"Tell me anyway," he said, and she had the feeling he was saying it not so much to hear what the Oracle had to say, but because he thought she needed to tell him. Maybe she did. Maybe it was time she stopped carrying on such a dangerous affair on his boat. Or maybe she just needed to tell one of the most notorious priests of the Zion catechism and see if she was truly damned.  
  
"It has to do with the …" she didn't want to call it an experiment anymore. "… with the idea I had, when you were reporting to the Council about the Agents…"  
  
She told him everything but the part about the other AIs, and the specifics of exactly which Agent it had been. If Tank hadn't told Morpheus then she certainly wasn't going to, not with their past history. Some things might be forgiven if the faces didn't have names put to them, but if she told him that her Agent was the one who had killed Neo, she didn't think she'd ever live that one down. He watched, clearly with more than a little concern as the relationship between herself and the nameless Agent deepened, but without saying anything. She was grateful for that. Finally she was done, and sat waiting for him to reply.  
  
"Are you sure?" he asked finally.   
  
"About…" she started to ask him to clarify, then shrugged. "Not really. I'm not sure about any of it. I'm not even sure…" What I feel, she meant to say. Except she was sure, pretty sure, pretty damn sure. She'd felt it before, twice. And whether or not the recipient, the object of those feelings was in any position to reciprocate, that didn't mean she had to swim down de Nile. "Well. I'm sure about one thing."  
  
"Oh?" Morpheus asked, curious.  
  
She gave him a very direct, very feminine sort of look.   
  
"Oh. That."  
  
She refrained from the traditional eyeroll, and settled for a tolerant smile. Gossip traveled fast amongst the ship-board, especially women, who were in the minority. She'd heard a great deal from Niobe, even second- and third-hand. "I'm not sure about any of the rest of it, though. I don't… it just doesn't seem right. It doesn't even seem likely, much less possible. But the Oracle…"  
  
"Sometimes what the Oracle says is not necessarily what is literally true." He sounded more as though he was trying to convince himself rather than her. She wanted to believe it, but it was a lot harder when she'd been living it for the past three months.  
  
"I know. But…" Solace shook her head. "I know and I don't know. I mean, I know what… some of what's been going on. But I don't know what to do now. I don't even know if this was a good idea, for all I can think it might be the most catastrophic thing to happen since the sky went black."  
  
They were silent for a little while. It was getting easier to tell people; she'd already told just about everyone on the ship. Except for Dis, but after his last little stunt she wasn't sure whether telling him would result in more backhanded attempts to make her feel better or… something. She wasn't sure what. She wasn't sure about him anymore. She wasn't sure about anything anymore. Neo and Trinity had handled it all right. But Tank was still the only one who knew which Agent she had taken up with. She still didn't dare use the L word.   
  
"What are you going to do?" he asked.   
  
Solace took a deep breath, wanting to say that she didn't have the slightest idea what she was going to do. What she really wanted, what she almost craved was an order. Even if it was just to stay away from the Agent, she wanted an order. Some kind of structure to the chaos that had become her life. "I don't know what I'm going to do," she said after a while. "But…" She had said it was over. That it was done. She had meant it at the time.  
  
"But…" Morpheus knew what she wanted to do. Neither of them were going to say it before the other, which meant it wasn't going to be said, but they both knew what she wanted. He stared down at his hands, and she stared at him. It was the living definition of an uncomfortable silence.  
  
"It's impossible," she whispered. "The whole situation is impossible."  
  
"No…" Morpheus replied slowly, and she jerked her head back up to stare at him. "It's not."  
  
Stunned, staring. "What?"  
  
"You said it yourself in your first speech to the Council. The Agents are built to look like us, to mimic our responses and abilities so that they will not be noticed by the majority of the humans, those who are still plugged in. Because of that, whether intended by the machines or not, they are developing human responses."  
  
It was unexpected, to say the least. "You believe that?"  
  
"I believe…" he paused. "I believe that you are right. Hatred, the kind of hatred I saw in Agent Smith when I was a prisoner of the Agents, is a human emotion. It is not something I would have expected to see from the Agents, although of course at the time…"   
  
"At the time it wasn't relevant…" she nodded slowly. "Now it is. It may be. There's so much about the Agents that we don't understand, that maybe we should, if only so that we can live through more encounters…" There was so much about the way the AI world worked that no one understood because everyone was too busy trying to escape it, to bring it down. But she didn't say that. One step at a time, one change, one heresy turned apocrypha turned canon at a time. Besides, none of that helped her decide what to do about …  
  
"Smith…"  
  
He had broken into her very thoughts. She stared at him again, horrified. "What…?"  
  
"If it weren't too dangerous, I would almost suggest that you make Smith your next target…" he continued, mistaking the reasons for her apprehension. "But I don't think…"  
  
"No." Too close. He was far too close. And she silently begged the Agent's forgiveness for the words she was about to say, even though she was damn sure she'd never tell him about ths conversation. "Smith… if he feels emotions they're all dark. All the bad ones. It… probably wouldn't be a good idea."  
  
"No." Understatement of the century. "But it's a good thought. A good idea…" He stood up again. "You should keep going, if you can find another. Perhaps, in the end, you will lead us to a different way out."   
  
It was the first time she'd heard him say that about anyone other than Neo. She blinked, but he was gone before she could ask him to clarify.   
  
A different way out, though.  
  
Solace stretched back out on the bunk, new thoughts whirling through her mind. 


End file.
